OG's kiwi adventures

Charlatans in New Zealand and goodbye....

2008-11-13T07:48:00.007+13:00

If burglarising 30-40 year old British males is your bag then last night must have been like Christmas as we were all at the Powerstation in Auckland to see the Charlatans' first ever NZ gig.

They were as good as ever (5th time I've seen them I think) and played a mixture of the new album and the greatest hits. They've been around for so long, and the only band who've been there right through my music/drinking lifetime. Just about everyone of their songs took me back to significant events in the past... The Only One I Know - dancing like gimps in Britpop, A Man Needs To Be Told - table football in Withington.

I think the last gig I saw in the UK was Charlatans in Salford and when they played Here Comes a Soul Saver, followed by One to Another then The Only One I Know, I was ready to go straight to the airport and get the first plane back to England. Either that or build a time machine to go back to SLAM c. 1995.

I think this is as good a time as any to officially sign off from this 'blog'. It's titled "Kiwi Adventures" and as I've been here for nearly 3 years, the adventures have turned into everyday life. Besides, I think I'm down to one reader per day on average and that's because I set it as my mum's homepage.

Thanks for reading and commenting and you'll be the first to know if I get the blogbug again in future.

OG.

OG's Top 3s...

2008-08-25T12:11:00.004+12:00

Until the Olympics started I didn't give them much thought, but watching the closing ceremony envoked feelings similar to the last day of the summer holidays.

It was a thoroughly enjoyable couple of weeks for many reasons. The performance of the British athletes for one, but that wasn't the only reason seeing as they understandably didn't get a great deal of coverage on New Zealand television. The time zone worked so well for me here which helped. The main bulk of the competition was between 3pm and midnight NZ time so I was able to watch a lot of sport in two weeks.

My memory is appalling, so I thought I'd give myself a permanent record of the highs and lows of these Games with a series of Top 3s...

Top 3 Controversies

* There were billions of sighs around the globe as cute little Lin Miaoke got up to sing in front of the world. It looked like she mimed, but that's fair enough given the enormous amount of pressure on shoulders so young. However, it was later revealed that it was not her voice doing the singing but that of mini gargoyle, Yang Peiyi. Now, I very much doubt that the watching world would have been of the opinion that the singing was beautiful but the face was munted. But the organisers didn't want to take that chance and put a pin up girl out in front of the cameras. It's one thing having some stupid boy at school tell you you're a minger but having that view endorsed by your country and reported around the world isn't going to do a great deal for her self esteem.

(pic: mirror.co.uk)

* There was something very democratic and unexpected about the Chinese decision to have three 'Protest Parks' in Beijing for the ordinary folk to express their grievances. As long as they applied for and received permission to do so. According to this article HERE all 77 applications were either withdrawn or rejected. Spare a thought for these two gutsy grannies who were rehoused after their homes were knocked down in the building of the Olympic venues, their persistant grumblings almost landed them with a year's hard labour.

* It must be very frustrating to train for four years and have your Olympic dream crushed by the opinion of judges. This is one of my main gripes about the validity of certain sports in the Olympics. In my opinion, an Olympic medal should be given to those who've bettered their opponents. Faster, higher, stronger and all that. However, I do feel amateur boxing and gymnastics have a place at the Olympics so I'm all over the show on this issue. The judging in the contact sports has been a big controversy of the Games and the few boxing and Taekwondo bouts I've seen certainly seem very dodgy when it comes to points awarded. It probably doesn't excuse Cuban Taekwondoist Angel Valodia Matos kicking the referee in the face in protest. He is facing a life ban from the Olympics and his sport isn't faring much better. After many judging controversies at this Games and the last it's facing the boot (in the face).

(pic reuters)

Top 3 Brits

* Rebecca Romero - she won a silver medal in Athens 4 years ago and a gold medal in Beijing. Impressive but not Top 3 material except that her silver medal was in rowing and her gold was in cycling. Winning the individual pursuit in a no lose situation for Great Britain made her the first British woman to win medals in different summer Olympic sports.

* Rebecca Adlington - 2 Gold medals and a world record makes her the best British swimmer in 100 years. She edged out the field in the 400m free then destroyed the lot and a 19 year old world record to win her favoured event, the 800m free.

* Ben Ainslie - more historical greatness as sailor Ainslie won gold at his third consecutive Olympics to become Britains greatest ever Olympic sailor. Maybe Team NZ should have given him the helm in the Americas cup! At the age of 31 Ainslie will probably be chasing down the likes of Pinsent and Redgrave.

Top 3 Kiwis

* Evers-Swindells - as the reigning Olympic champions, the rowing twins had had a nightmare couple of years of injury and poor performance but came through at the last to pip the German crew by 1/100th of a second in the double sculls. They were rewarded with gold, the job of carrying the flag at the closing ceremony (the only country to have 2 representatives) and no doubt many more meat adverts.

* Mahe Drysdale - single sculls World Champion, Mahe, had a rocky road to the Olympic final. Expected to represent New Zealand in Beijing, Mahe was made to race off against Rob Waddell after the latter (2000 Olympic champion) came out of retirement and beat Mahe in a club race. There was massive hype over the 3 race head-to-head Olympic trial and poised at 1-1, Waddell's long standing heart condition resurfaced and Drysdale eased to victory. His problems weren't over though as a virus during the Olympics lost him 4kg's in weight and affected his preparation and qualification races. He squeaked through to the final and put his all into building a lead but couldn't hold on unfortunately and collapsed after finishing 3rd.

* Nick Willis - Another bronze medal but given the competition from the East Africans, Willis finishing 3rd in one of the flagship events of the Games, the 1500m, was an outstanding achievement.

Top 3 Athletes

* Usain Bolt - 3 golds and 3 world records (one of them while jogging)
* Michael Phelps - 8 golds made even more remarkable by his diet
* Chris Hoy - track cycling's equivalent of the above two. He destroyed all-comers despite being Scottish.

Top 3 special mentions

* Matthias Steiner - 1 year on from the death of his wife in a car crash, this German weightlifter held a picture of her up to the cameras along with his gold medal. His reaction after the winning lift was a great moment.
* BBC live text coverage - I needed constant info on how the Brits were doing and the BBC website provided it. With surprising quality too given their embarrassingly laddish speak on their internet cricket over-by-over coverage.
* Opening/Closing ceremonies - breathtaking.

Top 3 unexpected sports

* BMX - races last about 35 seconds and it's all out carnage. Thrilling stuff.
* 10km swim - both male and female races had incredibly close finishes after a couple of hours in the water. All manner of underwater shenanigans too apparently which added spice.
* Gymnastics - I've never been a fan, and coupled with what I said earlier about sports that are decided by subjective human opinion, I was totally surprised by how much I enjoyed the gymnastics. The Chinese and American teams dished up some unbelievable physical feats that changed my view on the sport. I still probably won't watch it again till 2012 though.

Top 3 sports to get rid of

* Walking
* Water dancing
* Any sport where the Olympics isn't the pinnacle of achievment - namely football, basketball and tennis.

Top 3 hair tearers (sub title: TVNZ coverage)

* Events repeated in triplicate daily - for some reason whatever main event shown in full at around 4pm was then repeated, in full, in the early evening and then again at about 11pm. Why? Especially when...
* Some events got zero coverage - shooting, archery, modern pentahlon and often they were on at times when TV One was showing a basketball group game between Lithuania and Iran. Frustrating to say the least.
* Showing group games in full when other sports on - I just covered that. But it was VERY frustrating.

Top 3 comedy moments

* Screens up for stricken weightlifter - we can laugh at this now the poor sod's injuries aren't career threatening. But it did have a look of a horse about to be put down. I won't put a link up for this, it's a family site.
* Toni Street's interview of Irish sprinter - Flying the kiwi journalism flag (well worth a watch!)
* Marc Willers BMX - one of my favourite BMX moments... about 1 minute into this clip. First he causes a big pile up by spinning round, he manages not to fall off then spins round and plows straight into one of the felled riders.

All in all, I loved every minute of the Games and am already looking forward to the next one. However, I don't want to think about that too much as I'll be 35. Wow.

If anyone still reads this site then please add comments of your favourite moments.

On the move...

2008-07-28T18:27:00.003+12:00

Jo and I have our own place! We signed up at the weekend and move in next Saturday. It's all happening very quickly.

We're currently living with Jo's parents as they returned from overseas at the beginning of the month. But, the freeloading must come to an end and we're off to live in the trendy Grey Lynn/Ponsonby area. We'll be close to town, a short hop from both our work places and the area has lots of bars/cafes/niceties to keep us entertained. Most of our friends live nearby too. In short, we got lucky in getting such a nice flat in this area for this price.

I'm sure you're wanting to see it after this build up, so here it is in all it's glory...

We went in to measure up for the furniture we needed to buy so I borrowed a nifty little program off the internet and created this floor plan. Cool, eh? It's a 1 bedroom apt with a very good sized private courtyard (the top bit). I'll get some proper photos up when we move in.

Batten down the hatches...

2008-07-26T16:58:00.001+12:00

There's a cyclone coming...

Nuptials...

2008-07-14T21:31:00.005+12:00

3 posts per month is the average for this year so far. That's not particularly prolific. But then again, I swore this wouldn't turn into a diary of my breakfast habits nor did I want to bore anyone reading with my views on political matters such as the anti smacking bill. (Unnecessary, in case you were wondering)

Nope, I'm going to stick to my guns of only posting personal events of interest. Events that may be include comedy pictures...

Or nice ones for me Ma...

The other weekend Jo and I and family attended the wedding of family friends. It was a very churchy affair, not in a good (catholic) way though, one of those new fangled ones that you see on GODTV should you ever stay on it long enough while channel surfing through to programming for the discerning gentleman (Boz).

The ceremony took place in a "church" with that word given the old nodding fingers routine because it was more like a state of the art theatre. Complete with giant screens, several very fancy cameras, a booming sound system and a full on band with very shiny, and therefore presumably expensive, instruments. St Joseph and St Teresa in Woodlands it was not.

However, each to their own and I escaped without being brainwashed or fleeced for 50% of my income. Not that I'm using stereotypes or anything! It was querky in parts (especially when some of the congregation appeared to be having actual out of body experiences during a Christian soft rock ballad), but enjoyable and they're a lovely couple and I was made to feel very welcome despite only having met them once before.

The evening bash was set in a country club about an hour south of where we're based on the North Shore. Jo and I had taken advantage of the wedding guest room rate of $100 (about 40 quid) which bought us a 1 bedroomed villa with huge bathroom and great views of the course and the water. The speeches were very funny, food was outstanding and, given that quite a number of the guests were teetotal, the booze was free flowing.

The following morning we headed back to Auckland after taking time to have a stroll along a beautiful beach...

Shootin' sum B ball outside ova school...

2008-06-26T23:03:00.002+12:00

I scored some more free tickets from Radio Sport. This time for the Tall Blacks vs Boomers (New Zealand vs Australia in old money) basketball international at the North Shore Events Centre.

It was my first ever live bball game and it was pretty interesting. I had no idea how much elbowing and shoving people over went on. Netball it aint.

There were quite a few other things going on to entertain us when the game was on of it's many breaks. Such as an entertaining 4-4 draw between to U13 girl sides shooting at hoops that 7 footers have to jump to reach. Some guy had a free throw for $1000. He rimmed it but netted the rebound from further out for no reward. Unlucky.

There was also a half time presentation for recently retired Tall Black Dylan Boucher. Although the PA system wasn't quite up to scratch as Jo thought some random guy was being given a dinner voucher.

We left before the end to beat the traffic and the aussies were so far ahead it didn't really matter.

If I can get the picture from my phone to here I'll show you one of the best mullets I've ever seen in person. Hicktastic.

Weather...

2008-06-24T16:29:00.002+12:00

Weird weather recently, which I'm still not used to... Dark, dirty storm clouds for as far as the eye can see so I take shelter in my truck. Then, 10 minutes later bright blues skies and warm sunshine. By the time I got home later in the day, a giant (20 second long) hail storm struck before more glorious sunshine. Crazy.

When the weather isn't as buck wild as this I have to find other ways of entertaining myself when working. One is to try and get texts read out on radio sport. I've not had much luck lately, they don't seem that interested in my pro-English sport ramblings, until today. The subject was great sporting family dynasties. Here's one especially for my mum...

CLICK HERE

Nice bit of editing if I do say so myself. Apologies for the sound quality - that's what they put on their website.

I could talk about the rugby at Eden Park the other week but the NZ Herald says it all really. Even if they do say it like a drunk pom hater in the pub with his mates.

The planned big night out didn't go that well either. A few of us congregated at Will and Jiah's place for the AGM of the Eden Stallions (done for purposes of gaining sponsorship money) where I managed to lobby successfully for president. Sweet. I say AGM, but that lasted about 2 minutes. The rest of the time was spent on Guitar Hero and drinking our way through an epic table tennis tournament.

We got to the pub near the ground about an hour before kick off but the queue was massive so a bit of street drinking took place before getting to the game. The game was a bit of a blur. A packed house, but not the atmosphere of the Twenty20 game and a poor result. Afterwards the original group of 13 got broken up and Jo, I, Dave and Sonya were the only ones who made it to town. Sonya didn't make it much further though and the night came to a close.

Sport over the last 8 or 9 days didn't get much better. England were saved by the rain at the cricket, then imploded to gift the Black Caps their first win. I predicted wins for Portugal, Croatia, Holland and Italy in the Euro quarters and got 0/4. Good work! Now my Italian brothers are out I think I want ......... to win. I have no answer to that question. The worse thing has been that England weren't in it.

Then the rugby team got beat again.

In my lifetime there's only been a few spells of enjoyment for me as an English sports fan. Italia 90 - brilliant, but ended in tears. Euro 96 - best time of my life, then ended in tears. Ashes 05 - longest sustained period of joy for me as an English sports fan and at least we won, but been crying ever since.

It almost makes me want to give up and become a yank. They invented sports as we did. But they were clever about it, unlike us they kept the sports to themselves and called winning teams the world champions. They can never lose! Genius.

2008-06-08T22:02:00.002+12:00

From the birthday weekend of one England's best loved characters here in NZ to another - mine! 29 again and I don't look a day older.

As I've previously hinted at, there will be a major booze up in celebration next weekend with the focal point being the rugby test between NZ and England. There are 13 of us going with only 3 being poms so we'll have to go some to outshout them.

This weekend has been fairly quiet. Jo lavished me with plenty of gifts, including several items from the english shop (mmm dandelion & burdock...). The main gift being a new phone. I've had my other one since my first week in the country and, like my camera, has been through the mill somewhat. Including being dropped more times than Graeme Hick (or Matthew Sinclair depending on which country you're reading this). Finally, it's been consigned to the draw of other shitnaks that will get moved around from place to place till I eventually decide I don't need to keep it in about 10 years time. The big shock for me is that it's my first non-Nokia so my texting speed has dropped right off. In fact, I'm so slow my mum could probably beat me in a text-off. Grate. (In-joke).

And so back to work tomorrow after a relaxing birthday weekend. I think I've pushed the "you cook tonight, it's my birthday" privileges about as far as I can. Although, those who witnessed me drag out my leaving do(s) over several months will probably not be too surprised if Jo gets subjected to that for the rest of the week.

Finally, for those who witnessed mine and Millhouse's sporting war on the comments a couple of posts ago, don't worry, it's been put to bed. I killed him. Gartside knows best.

I'm a streamer...

2008-06-02T11:11:00.002+12:00

It's Queen's birthday weekend. I don't think that means a great deal in England but here in NZ old queenie grants us a day off work to partake in the celebrations. There are street parties, bunting and Vera Lynn on the wireless. Or maybe no one cares and just puts their feet up and watches Rachel Ray.

We've been living here in Browns Bay for a couple of weeks now and the loss of sky sports hasn't hit me as hard as I expected. I've managed to find just about every sporting event I want to watch streamed on the internet and I'm currently watching England 'B' sweep aside the plucky Trindad & Tabogganists. I even prefer the US channel, Wheels TV, coverage of the Formula 1.

I also live a lot closer to the English Shop here in Browns Bay. I met Jo for lunch the other day and was very cosmopolitan in choosing sushi. However, I followed it up with a Lion bar and washed it down with a can of Tizer. Just for old times sake. I presume they've taken all the good stuff out of Tizer (sugar, additives, red dye) as it wasn't quite as nice.

Another good local attraction is the British Isles Pub. It's a mere one minute walk away and has all manner of english paraphernalia on the walls. And, obviously, a giant South African flag on the ceiling. In the quiz on Tuesday Jo, I, Rob and Mia finished a creditable 6th out of 13. We had food too which was outstanding. I had the beef and vegetable lasagna which was probably the best I've had in NZ and it came with a salad served in a popadum! Unorthodox but delicious.

There has been a lack of posts, mainly due to lack of exciting things I've done but watch this space... It's my birthday soon and there'll be a big night out taking in the All Blacks vs England rugby test at Eden Park. Swing lowwww.............. and so forth.

JT take a bow...

2008-05-22T21:06:00.002+12:00

...for having the guts to stand up and take a penalty. Nicolas Anelka - hang your head. 7th penalty? You soft git.

What a great final it was. Not a free flowing footballing spectacle but it was fantastic to watch. However, the penalty shootout was the most agonizing viewing to come out of Moscow since Police Academy 7.

Justice was about to be served up on a plate after Ronaldo's smug grin was wiped following his joke effort. But sadly, the pitch gods were smiling on Manchester United as the mighty John Terry's foot was taken out from under him as he sent Van De Sar the wrong way. Although we'll never know, it looked like the penalty would have gone in if it wasn't for that slice of bad luck.

Oh well. In better news, Anthony Quinn crossed first for New South Wales in the first State of Origin game winning me the massive $6 sweepstake pot. Get in there.

The quiet life...

2008-05-12T10:43:00.002+12:00

There hasn't been much going on of late - business is slowing down a little with winter on it's way so the social life has been put on the back burner somewhat.

Jo and I celebrated 18 months together this weekend with a Mongolian BBQ at Gengis Khan restaurant. Lunt will vouch for it's quality. And so will any future visitors from the UK who'll definitely be taken along.

There has also been a new addition to the household as one of my fellow Eden Stallions, Nick, has lent me his playstation 3 while he's overseas. I've got to say I'm pretty impressed - I've already completed Drake's Uncharted Fortune and Jo is currently enjoying Crash Bandicoot (the most annoying game in the world... why can't you just save at the end of a level?!?!?) which Nick had downloaded. Maybe this is the real reason for a slower social life?

And so on to the Stallions - check out the website for their progress. We're top of the table after 5 games and this weekend we won in the first round of the cup against a team from 2 divisions above. On a personal note, I'm having a better season than previous with 10 goals so far.

I'm not sure whether it's the fact that we play in Chelsea kits or not, but having just watched highlights of the end of the Premiership season, I am going to be totally behind the blues in the Champions League final.

I used to be about as anti Manchester United as you could get but that eased off over the years almost to a state of indifference. I'm even managing them on Champ. But a few things have re-ignited that particular flame. I'll incur the wrath of Millward for this (if he still reads this site) but here goes...

1. The spoilt brat attitude...
1a. We don't like the new owners so we'll start our own football team in protest. Then still support both.
1b. Other english fans hate us (a natural by product of a decade of domination) so we'll hate England and sing anti-English songs and pro-Argentina ones. I'll add Tevez draping himself in the Argentinian flag when collecting his medal. Urgh.
1c. The BBC once said something bad about someone so Ferguson won't talk to them ever again.

2. Ronaldo. A horrible player. I hated the way he stops playing when he thinks he's been fouled with almost a "how dare you even try to tackle someone as good as me" smugness about him. A great talent, no doubt, but does he really have to act like a total (&^(^#&)$*&) (*^#?

Take a deep breath.

Back to real life, and the end of an era is upon us as I shall be moving out of the flat I share with Rob and into Jo's parents place to house sit as they go to Europe for a couple of months. As much as I'm looking forward to living with Jo, I'm not sure how I'll cope with out Sky Sports.

Finally, they've had a series on tv here called the 7 Ages of Rock and last night it was an indie/Britpop episode. Wow, it took me back. You don't hear much Roses over here so that was a joy. With Suede, Elastica, Echobelly, Sleeper and Pulp all getting a mention, I was transported back to SLAM (Students Love Alternative Music) in Karisma on a Tuesday nights, hammering back those pints of snakky b for a pound a go and dancing like a nutter to The Only One I know. Speaking of which, Charlatans didn't get a mention which I thought very strange given they're the longest lasting of all the Britpop era bands.

And the winner is...

2008-04-22T15:51:00.002+12:00

My long search to find the world's greatest shopping mall food court is at an end. With the title going to...

bdum bdum bdum bdum bdum bdum bdum bdum bdum bdum bdum bdum bdum bdum

...the Atrium in Auckland city centre. That was a drum roll by the way.

They even refer to it as a "Food Gallery" on the website. Classy. With food on offer from the med, Malaysia, Singapore, Japan, Italy, USA, Mexico, India, Thailand, Taiwan, Vietnam, China and Korea, (yes I looked those up) and all at McD's prices it is well worth a visit. No McD, KFC, or Wendy's either. My mouth is watering just thinking about it.

And to think Jo didn't think I'd be able to get an interesting post out of this. Hmmm.

Awooooogaaa...

2008-04-19T15:44:00.003+12:00

American Gladiators made a comeback on our tv screens this week in NZ and what a welcome return it is. The games haven't lost any of their charm and a hilarious eliminator at the end with 2 female contenders looking like a couple of punch drunk boxers staggering around trying to finish.

It prompted some reminiscing from Rob and I about the classic contests of the mid 90s. I bizarrely managed to remember Eunice Huthart and Wesley '2 scoops' Berry as being the most famous contenders.

So we decided to do a bit of a where are they now internet search and uncovered an astounding piece of information..... Wolf now runs a children's playground centre in Auckland...New Zealand!

Crazy plans were being hatched of getting him to present end of season awards for the Stallions, but after further investigation it appears this information was slightly out of date and Wolf now lives in Queenstown, on the South Island.

For Gladiator fans here is a video of the greatest eliminator ever between 2 scoops and Phil Norman, who probably starts crying every time he goes up the stairs at home as it triggers memories of that travelator...

CLICK HERE - sadly embedded has been disabled so you'll have to do it the old fashioned way.

Hello again...

2008-04-15T09:12:00.002+12:00

An update is long overdue isn't it? So what have I been up to since my last post. Not a great deal really, my back injury got quite bad and forced me to miss work (legitimately) and sport. As this had a direct effect on my pocket my social life suffered similarly. So there haven't been many nights out to write about. There was Dave's birthday a couple of weeks ago at his local pub. I got one photo which goes someway to answering the age old question... Just who is Breeny's Fella?

I'm back at work now though thanks mainly to a back brace the physio sold me to give me more support. It's certainly doing the trick although I'd call it more of a corset given how restricting it is. I might bring it into regular circulation to squeeze in to some of my old clothes again. I'm starting to feel connected with the women of yesteryear. I wonder if they experienced the same phenomenon I do... Just like when you lean against a wall on one arm, then move away and the arm raises up by itself. When I take my corset, sorrry, back brace off my stomach muscles force my gut right out and I get a bit of Ethiopian Belly. That must have played havoc with some of the great love stories of the past. "Mr Darcy was aghast as he finally lay his eyes upon his love, he was staring at the worse case of Ethiopian Belly he had ever seen."

On to cricket matters... The England tour of NZ was great. I made it to one day's test cricket in the picturesque ground of Hamilton where I lounged on the grass banks and saw one of the best day's play I'd ever seen live. Lots of NZ wickets tumbling as England fought themselves into a winning position. Which they then blew the next day. Some better cricket followed in the remainder of the series and saw us triumph in the end. I could wear my England cap with pride again. I'm going to enjoy it while it lasts.

On a personal sporting level, our new 11-a-side Sunday League team, Eden Stallions, is up and running and after 2 games we top the table. Follow the link on the right to our website (remarkably similar looking to this one) containing match reports and a top scorers table (ahem) amongst other things. Due to a team from a higher division pulling out at the last minute there was a league restructure and we now find ourselves in a division with only 3 others.

In other news Jo and I have caught up on a few films. I've always avoided the Pianist for some reason but it's a fantastic film and almost makes me want to watch Schindler's List. Almost but not quite. We've also watched the Back to the Future trilogy... amazing. Watching it this time I realised a couple of things, namely Michael J Fox plays his daughter (don't think I noticed that before) and we're only 7 years away from hoverboards and hydrating pizzas. The world will be a better place...

Old man troubles...

2008-03-07T14:25:00.002+13:00

No, not my waterworks, my back is giving me some stick. I strained it lugging my mowers about and have damaged one of the joints on the spine or something. It's meant starting a course of physio and lightening my workload, with a by product of being home mid afternoon and catching the last session and a half of the test match.

My visit to the physio yesterday was an interesting one as I had my back "manipulated" for the first time. This involved the physio and I getting into the sort of position you'd expect to see in one of Heyesie's cook books then one sharp movement and one loud click later, I was fixed. Only temporarily though and I've got more of the same to come.

Anyway, I'd better go, the sofa is calling and England's batsmen need my support...

Hey now, hey now, don't dream. It's over...

2008-03-03T19:05:00.003+13:00

Today was the day of the big draw and STINK I didn't win. They drew someone out from Christchurch then rang him and he didn't answer. Unlucky. They drew it again and although it was a bit closer (south Auckland) it wasn't close enough and the lucky winner will be off to his chosen event... the Monte Carlo Grand Prix in May.

Jammy bastard. Looks like I'm going to have to pay for my own trip back to the UK. See you all in 2015.

I like those odds...

2008-02-28T18:01:00.002+13:00

The radio station that keeps me entertained during work, Radio Sport, have recently been running a competition offering the winner a free trip to any sporting event in the world in 2008. To enter you fill in a form on the website, then several times during the day they draw a name out and that person has an hour to call the station back. If you managed this, you were entered into the draw which took place last Monday. I eagerly entered and listened when I could during the day but sadly my name wasn't drawn out (or if it was I missed it).

The winner had selected the NRL Grand Final as his dream sporting trip anywhere in the world. For those who aren't clued up, this is the final of the Australian Rugby League competition. In Sydney. Wow. What a waste! You can pick anywhere and they will fly you there FOR FREE, give you tickets for the event FOR FREE and put you up in a hotel FOR FREE. Maybe this guy doesn't have very lofty ambitions, or has seen and done it all.

Either way, the station decided to run the competition again seeing as sending someone to Sydney would probably eat up about 2% of their budget for this. Can anyone see why I'm bothering you with this yet?

Yesterday I decided to buy a personal radio to listen whilst I'm out of the car mowing lawns. This turned out to be the best $10 I ever spent as during my final lawn today this happened....

CLICK ME

For those who aren't that technologically minded (hi mum), the gist is my name was read out, I called back and I'm now in the draw on Monday to win a free trip to the British GP. Apparently there are thousands registered for this so I've done pretty well to be picked out.

I think there's a maximum of around 100 people who could be in the draw, maybe a lot less depending on how many people didn't call back in the allotted time. So I've got maybe a 80/1 shot of a free trip home.

Sounds ok to me.

I don't like cricket, I LOVE IT...

2008-02-11T17:44:00.001+13:00

I suggested a romantic weekend break in Wellington to Jo and she was very keen. By some coincidence England's first One Day International against NZ was being played there on the Saturday. It would have been silly not to go see it. Especially when Radio Sport were giving away pairs of free tickets for any talkback callers. CLICK HERE to hear what I had to say this time (about 6 mins in again and isn't very exciting I'm afraid).

We decided to be even more thrifty and make a road trip of it rather than fly, so we set off early Friday morning to make the journey down the length of the North Island.

We stopped first just shy of Taupo, at a place called Huka Falls...

Where the incredibly fast flowing water of the Waikato River was making it's way back to our taps in Auckland. We then went into Taupo itself and had lunch on the beach of Lake Taupo.

From there we headed on south and arrived in Wellington about 9 hours after we left Auckland.

I like Wellington, it's a more down to earth city than Auckland with a much broader spectrum of bars, restaurants and theatres on offer. It is very hilly and the weather isn't all that great which would probably put me off living there. It is still the only other place in New Zealand I would consider living though at this stage.

On the morning of the game we took the cable car up to the observatory and walked back down to the city through the Botanical Gardens before making our way to the stadium...labeled the Cake Tin. I was a bit worried about the gathering clouds but I really should have worried more about England making a half decent game of it. They didn't.

The ground wasn't anywhere near as full as Eden Park, or as vocal. But it was a good day.

By the way, the DJ at the ground confirmed what I knew already, if you want to get a kiwi crowd singing then you have 2 options...

Kenny Rogers', The Gambler works pretty well,

But nowhere near as well as The Exponents...

Heyesie (c. 1995) lookalike anyone?

Kiwis everywhere go mental for this song...guaranteed!

Twenty20...

2008-02-04T21:41:00.000+13:00

My first taste of watching England play in person on these shores and it was a good one. After plenty of effort by Rob and I our fancy dress outfits were ready for action.

We convened in a park near to the ground and had a few pre-matchers - flagrant flouting of the public liquor ban but fortunately for us the coppers were all checking handbags at the gates. Here is me, Dave, Sonya, Rob and Milan being tidy kiwis...

On to the game. Last week it was the Wellington Sevens where it's almost compulsory to dress up, however Aucklanders don't have quite the same passion for looking ridiculous. It didn't bother us too much though...

It was a nice setting, a vociferous crowd and a great result. Get in!...

That sign wasn't too annoying.

A catch up...

2008-02-02T11:52:00.000+13:00

The lack of posts may give the impression that I've done absolutely nothing since I got back but that's not strictly true.

Take a couple of weeks ago for example... Jo's mum scored some free passes to a corporate box for finals day at the NZ Beach Volleyball Open. She kindly donated the tickets to Jo so we went along with Rob, Bonzo and Sonya. Forgot my camera so here are a few images from day one my cursory internet search found. It was a great day and our box was nicely placed courtside, I felt like Spike Lee at the Knicks. We had an umbrella for shade and a cool box for the 3 beers we bought there. Definitely not for any illegally smuggled in ones. Sadly, the NZ ladies team lost to Brazil in the final to the delight of the samba gang who took over one stand but the mens team (ranked only a few outside Olympic qualifying) scored a fine win to save the day.

Last weekend Jo and I took a trip to one of the 400,000 beaches within an hour of Auckland. Even though it only took 40 minutes to get to Bethells Beach and we weren't there that long it felt like going away on holiday. The beach was pretty busy but given it's size that didn't matter. It's a west coast beach which means black, volcanic sand and wild surf. In fact, the Independent apparently voted it in the world's top 10 beaches a few years ago.

Finally, this week sees the start of the England cricket team's tour of NZ. I remember seeing the planned 2008 tour a few years ago when I was first thinking of making the big move. It sounded so far into the future, but here we are. The first game is a 2020 at Eden Park, just up the road, on Tuesday evening. This will be my first limited overs live England game, quickly followed by my second as Jo and I are off to Wellington next weekend, with the first ODI coincidentally there on Saturday. What a stroke of luck. For me, anyway.

Sadly no test matches in Auckland, the nearest being in Hamilton, mainly due to the poor attendances at tests at Eden Park in recent years. Speaking of which, I made my radio debut (any face for radio gags like Jo's are not welcome) the other day during a phone in on Radio Sport. For those who are interested in my view point, miss hearing my voice or simply fancy a chuckle as I get a dry throat and nearly choke only a few seconds in, the link is below. You have to skip forward about 6 minutes in for my bit.

Click here for me on my soapbox

More pictures to come in the next couple of days...

UK Trip - final post...

2008-01-22T19:36:00.000+13:00

Better late than never.

It's 2 weeks since we arrived back in New Zealand and the whole trip seems like a lifetime away now. The flights back were a mixed bag - Lufthansa cocked up our seats and we were sat in the middle 2 of the bank of 4 for 12 long hours on an old plane with some non-descript film on a tiny screen 10ft away. Air New Zealand however provided much more leg room, personal entertainment systems and didn't run out of breakfast meals by the time they got to our seats.

We also had a pleasant mini stopover in Hong Kong airport. We were there for 7 hours, which seemed pretty daunting beforehand, but they have a transit lounge you can pay to get in to. We chose the 5 hour option with 2 hour nap. Comfortable seats, free food and drink, free internet and shower facilities. All for only 45 quid for the 2 of us.

In the end we got home feeling fairly well apart from the bad cold that laid Jo up for a few days. Now I'm feeling pretty settled back into life and work over here. Next on the agenda is to get fit for the new football season....3 months and counting...

UK Trip - penultimate post

2008-01-05T02:18:00.000+13:00

I'm currently sat at my parents house, relaxing, no running off to various parts of the country for a drinking binge, just waiting for a home cooked meal to be prepared for one of the last times before I head back to NZ.

So why not spend this quiet family time with a quick (yeah, right) post?

First of all, thanks to everyone for making Jo feel so welcome on her first trip over to the UK. It'll hopefully be her first trip of many so it's been good for her to have a better impression of the British people than the 2 nutters screaming at her gave. Boz and Breeny really need to learn some manners.

She's in Paris at the moment but I think she'll allow me to speak for both of us when I say that it's been a great trip. I haven't been able to see everyone and those I have seen I haven't seen enough of, so sorry about that.

It's been a bit of an eye opener - I don't think we'll want to be doing a 3 week trip every 2 years. There's too much to cram in. I also don't want to move back to England, I enjoy New Zealand too much. So it seems there are 2 options...

1. Persuade all my family and friends to move to New Zealand or, if need be, Australia.

2. Make an annual trip back to England.

I'd better make sure my business is successful then...

UK Trip - post 4

2008-01-03T09:46:00.000+13:00

After just the one Christmas in the sun it was back to the wintery wonderland festivities I'm accustomed to.

Here are the cooks doing what they do best...

With the turkey sandwiches barely digested we were on the road again. This time off to Ireland (North and South) for the wedding of my old pal Andrew Creegan and his lovely lady, Sharon. It was a great day and the ceremony went without a hitch (except the obvious one).

He's me and the man of the day...

We've got a Breeny coming through...

Check out James' site for some more pictures.

A few hours of recovery from the booze and the hotel bill (being able to charge drinks to the room is a dangerous business) were spent at Brodsworth Hall the day after we got back before we were back on our travels.

This time we were off to London for New Year. We arrived on the 30th just in time to get over to the ice rink in front of the National History Museum with Natalie and her boyfriend, Dan. There are a couple of pictures that I'll get my hands on and post, sadly none of my tumble (the only one of us to fall) nor of my near tumble where my arms flayed about as I did a triple John Salako before just about regaining my balance.

On New Years Eve Dan cooked us all a tasty full English before we headed out into London for some sight-seeing with Jo's sister Maree...

After the Eye and St Pauls we were back to Natalie's for food and drink, joined by her friend Sarah and boyfriend Bern before heading off to the Frog...

Despite the Frog being free entry it was pretty empty so after sending Dan on a reccy to the Sun we decided to move and pay the £10. The free ice shot and Fools Gold being played after midnight confirmed it was the right move.

The last sensible picture of the night - I'm just about clinging onto a look of sobriety...

It was an early rise on New Years Day. Jo and Maree were off to Paris, Natalie was off to work and I was driving 200 miles up the M1 to see my only Oldham game of the trip, away at Leeds. We were just off the back of a poor home defeat, Leeds were unbeaten at home all season. It was fairly obvious we'd be 3-0 up by half time. It ended 3-1 and Acres and Lunt who'd foolishly agreed to come to the game with me were pleasantly surprised with the feast of football on show. After several hours spent in the Elland Road car park we made it back to Harrogate for a curry with some of my old work gang - Errington and Millhouse came over from Manchester, Smaje and his girlfriend from Leeds and Kwai and Nicola from round the corner. It was great to see everyone again and even greater that Lunt didn't repeat his previous curry house show. He did however cause a mess at Acres' house where just about everything he touched crashed to the floor. Disaster for Lunt...

Now I'm back home and putting my feet up until the end of the trip and the journey back to New Zealand.

UK Trip - post 3 AKA The Stag Do...

2007-12-24T21:55:00.000+13:00

What happens on the stag do, stays on the stag do is usually the unwritten rule when it comes to these events. But this time, rather than using it to mask any disgraceful antics, it's an excuse to keep this post brief (I can hear the collective sighs from here).

It was a fantastic weekend, so big thanks to best man James for organising it and to the stag, Andy, for getting married so my Donny Boy reunion was such a memorable one.

Friday night was a fairly straightforward one, beers in a few York pubs, being joined by revellers as they turned up from various parts of the country, ending in the Stone Roses bar which does exactly what it says on the tin. Here is group shot number 1...

It was a pretty heavy night and fortunately the York roads were wide enough to accommodate the side-to-side staggering (no pun intended) of the groom as we made our way home.

Day two started with a production line of bacon sandwiches and mugs of tea before we headed off to the sports hall for 2 hours of indoor football. Heyesie's team were clear winners, suffering their one and only defeat in their last game against us thanks to Joe's clever recording of the result on the whiteboard. A thrilling warm down peno comp was won by Jon Cope with some German-esque finishing.

After a quick(ish) turnaround we surprised Andy with the group blazers, then surprised him further when James presented him with his. Sadly the batteries were faultering on my camera at this point so I only have the one shot of the blazer squad...

James had organised a ghost walk which led us through the winding streets of York to a few pubs several centuries old via the occasional gruesome tale. After that, the indie club where Boz, on day release from Hogwarts, came into his own...

I really should stop promising these posts are going to be brief.

Finally, Happy Christmas one and all...

UK Trip - post 2

2007-12-22T00:20:00.000+13:00

It's Friday afternoon and Jo and I are about to go our separate ways. Jo is off down to London to spend the weekend with her sister Maree and I'm off the other way on the east coast mainline to York for the stag do.

Since my last post we've visited family and friends, had a nose round Doncaster and even ventured across the pennines to catch up with the WW crew and have a look round the Manchester Christmas markets.

Here's Jo by a very familiar street sign...

And here she is by my old flat in Manchester, playing for the first time ever in a meteorological phenomenon not really heard of in Auckland...frost...

UK Trip - post 1

2007-12-19T09:08:00.000+13:00

Well here we are in Brodsworth, and what a journey. It's a day on now so I'm a lot calmer and less inclined to do a massive, ranting post. In summary, it was awful. Want to know why? Ok, if you insist. I'll try and be brief though....

EDIT: You can save yourself an hour you'll never get back by skipping the bullet points.

* Despite checking in 3 hours before our flight we got seated on the back row for the NZ-LA leg where the seats only reclined about half way. The check in attendant didn't even ask us the usual aisle/window question.

* Our seats for leg two (LA-Frankfurt) were the middle 2 in the centre section of 4 seats - so someone on either side of us.

* I thought our luck changed in LA when I asked about our allocated seats and they managed to find us an aisle seat.

* I was wrong - we got on the plane and I was next to an annoying little kid who's mother's method of parenting was to ignore and read. Even when the kid took off up the aisle as the pilot was revving up the engines on the runway.

* This plane was fitted out about 20 years ago. No personal screens and the 2 films (in a 11 hour flight) were Hairspray and Licence to Wed. There weren't many 12 year old girls on the flight so not sure how they made those choices.

* Our connection to Manchester boarded 50 minutes after we were due to land in Frankfurt. We were delayed by 50 minutes though which lead to some sweaty palms on the airport. I asked a steward what the crack was and he told me there'll be more info given out nearer to landing.

* Info was the gate the Manchester flight left from. We grabbed our bags and sprinted off the plane to the gate, got to security checks (why? we were still in departures) and told the guy our flight left in seconds - he said "Oh it's ok, there have been a few Manchester passengers through just in front of you and no one from the desk has come to hurry people through". We eventually got to the desk I (after I was properly, or more accurately - improperly frisked and even had my passport and ticket x-rayed) and after being ignored a couple of times were told the flight had left.

* Back up to ticket counter to find out what to do next and were told we were now on the 1650 flight to Manchester - it was 1130 by this point. This had already been sorted out apparently so not sure why they couldn't have told us this and saved us the crazy sprint.

* Next was an hour long queue to pick up new boarding passes and the sourfaced rude cow at the desk didn't make that any more pleasureable.

* Back to ticket desk to get meal vouchers - 20 Euros. We wanted a sandwich and a drink which was about 12. If I was being optimistic I would have hoped for change, the very least I expected him to write down the remaining balance on the chit. But no, we had to use up the whole amount. We ended up chucking away most of the food (it's hard to find a hobo in need of a feed in a departure lounge) and the guy made a couple of euros pure profit.

No more worries after that, the short flight back to Manchester was fine and there waiting for us was my poor mum who'd been there to greet the arrivals on the 1125 flight.

In summary, in flight entertainment on Air New Zealand is fantastic, but don't sit on the back row. Flying with Lufthansa was horrible in just about every way. The only exception being one of the customer service guys in Frankfurt who let me call home twice and was actually helpful unlike the others.

Ha, a while ago I said I'd calmed down and I'll explain what happened in brief! Didn't quite work out that way did it?

Anyway, it's great to be home and in a way feels like only yesterday I left. We had a good nights kip and went for a walk around the village this morning. It was quite a change in temperature from NZ that's for sure...

I lived in Brodsworth for 20 years or so but Jo pointed out something I hadn't noticed before - you can join together the r and the n in the name of our neighbouring village with amusing results...

New Zealand and England can be very different. Jo was fascinated by the molehills. Sadly the moles couldn't be enticed out for the photo opportunity...

More pictures of our various adventures to follow (and less text I promise)...

2 days to go...

2007-12-14T20:44:00.000+13:00

I really do need to put a new picture on here to shunt that shocking one of the 'thing' on my lip further down the page.

How about a couple from my only Christmas boozey night out in NZ this year? Nothing too exciting, just a few beers at ours with Rob and Dave speeded up by Lunt's variation on the dice game - using cards. After Bonzo spewed off the balcony after a joker we headed off to the Kingslander for a few more. We were all limited in the pocket so after a few beers and some splendid work on the pool table we were done.

Well, after nearly killing myself out in the heat today there's only one working day left before we fly back to England. It's a Saturday too just to compound the misery. But I suppose I am having 3 weeks off so I can't complain too much.

So this is my final post before I head back. It feels like a lifetime since I was living there, but it's only been 2 years. I'm looking forward to seeing everyone I left behind (well, everyone I was bothered about leaving behind anyway), I'm not so keen to leave behind the warm summer weather we're having at the moment.

See you soon!! (mainly aimed at my mum seeing as I don't have that many readers any more, except Rob's Brazilian stalker of course...)

Footnote: Apologies for the quality of the writing...too many "left behind"s and "after"s. My excuse is that I toiled for 9 hours in the heat today. Woe is me.

Goodbye mo...

2007-12-01T11:32:00.000+13:00

It's the long awaited day... December 1st. Which means I can finally shave my 'tache.

Here is a filthy close up of the end result...

Today will also see me cut my hair for the first time in almost 3 months. I'm almost Dunc-like in my bouff...

I had the Rob Kidd '06 tache, here he is with this years version (one for his Brazilian fan club)...

A big thanks to those who sponsored me and raised a total of NZ$125 (Bradbury, Millward, Smaje and Rich Bibby). Not so big thanks to those who promised but never delivered.... James, Acres, Lunt. You 3 can buy me beers in England instead.

Big holiday countdown.... we fly in 15 days...

A few more years of hurt...

2007-11-22T17:57:00.000+13:00

Failure by England. Again. But not even at the tournament this time.

As Mr Creegan pointed out to me earlier, this could be the wake up call English football needed and that hopefully it'll go the same way as France, after their failure to qualify for Euro96.

Here are my thoughts...

By my reckoning only 2 of the 14 who played tonight are regulars for one of the much vaunted top 4. The rest either only play a handful of games for those teams or play for a team who's season's goal is to avoid relegation.

Granted there are a few missing (Neville, Rooney, Ferdinand, Terry) but it just highlights the lack of depth. There are far too many foreigners playing and coaching in the Premiership and it is affecting the national side. Who was the last Englishman to manage a title winning side? Howard Wilkinson, the season before the premiership started.

Until something is done about this the England team will never get anywhere.

Take Italy as a good example - I believe they have around 70% Italian players in their top flight teams. And the majority of top teams have recently had Italian coaches... Lippi, Anceloti, Mancini, Trapatoni. They won the World Cup. I've nothing against quality foreign players in the premiership, there have been plenty over the years who've vastly improved the standard of football in England. But it's getting ridiculous when the majority of every starting side is foreign.

Another question I have about English football is why don't any of the top players play overseas? In this day and age where the world has never been closer together (except billions of years ago when it actually was physically closer), and where players could easily afford private flights and helicopters to get home to their mums for tea, why does not one English player play for a decent European side.

Same goes for the coaches... Our two most successful English coaches in recent times, Bobby Robson and Terry Venereables, both coached at the highest level in Europe.

McLaren has to go. The FA felt they had to appoint an Englishman after the failure of a foreigner, which I agreed with. Even though there was no particularly obvious candidate. But now it's almost certain we'll be back to an overseas search.

If it were up to me (and I'm normally the last to advocate a foreigh coach), it has to be someone who's coached in England with success. Which pretty much leaves only one candidate.... Jose Mourinho.

Gimme some mo...

2007-11-15T19:34:00.000+13:00

James Christopher Creegan, get your goddamn hand in your pocket. The mo is taking shape now...

How about a sporting update? The indoor 5-a-side team Rob and I play for recently got promoted to the top division and then won our first game 4-0. Sweet.

Outdoors, the bowls season has started! It seems like ages since the last one ended with us champions of the BBC.

The first week was a washout but week 2 saw us pitted against the team who finished second last time round. We opened up a 5-0 lead, only to be pegged back. It was a tight game and although we were never behind, thanks largely to some good skip bowling from Casey, we went into the final end at 8-8. In the pressure situation Miller and I stepped up to send down our best bowls of the game to win it 10-8.

Good times.

Paper celebrations...

2007-11-15T19:20:00.000+13:00

Last Sunday Jo and I celebrated 1 year together. How time flies...

We headed about 30 minutes up north to a town called Whangaparoa to take a stroll in Shakespear Park. As far as the city centre is concerned Auckland is pretty unremarkable. But one of the great things about living here is what lurks on the outskirts and in the suburbs. There are countless nice beaches all within striking distance and all relatively unpopulated. Perfect for the summer that is just about here now.

Here's Jo getting her feet wet with the vague outline of the CBD in the background...

The big prang...

2007-11-04T19:18:00.000+13:00

After the liver-destroying 10 days of Lunt's visit a quiet weekend was in order. I worked all Saturday which was pretty profitable but also pretty tiring.

Sunday was a little more action packed. It started early as I got up to watch Great Britain give the Kiwis a good stuffing in the 2nd rugby league test then Jo and I took a drive to the park. Very relaxing. But all that was undone on the way home...

As I pulled up behind a queue of cars at some lights I heard a screeching of tires behind me. It took my body to be thrown forward to realise that someone was struggling to stop in sufficient time behind me.

SMASH!!

Fortunately for me I drive a very sturdy ute with the last couple of feet being almost entirely made of steel. Including the protruding tow bar.

So I came out of the fender bender with a slightly bent licence plate. The late braker, on the other hand, wasn't quite so lucky. My tow bar had burrowed so deep he was probably trying to change gear with it. His car, to use mechanical vernacular, was a right flipping mess.

To make things worse for the guy he didn't have insurance (not legally required in NZ). Let that be a lesson to you kids.

As far as I can remember this is the first accident I've been in since I was a little kid and someone hit the back of my mum's car. I didn't cry this time though, just moaned a little about whiplash. Cue my mum telling me I was 13 when that happened. And Jo telling me it was more than a little moaning this time...

Movember

2007-11-01T18:27:00.000+13:00

You may be here because you're a regular reader, maybe you got my email and wanted in on the fun or maybe you're one of those americans who keep getting directed here after googling for pictures of Paul from the Wonder Years.

However you found your way here, no matter, welcome. So today is day 1 of Movember. I have a cleanly shaven face (well as cleanly shaven as my face can be) and I'm starting to think about what sort of mo I want or dare go for. I'll go for a few days of full growth then shave in the mo people want to see.

Below are a few possibilities so please use the comments box to vote for your favourite, or maybe even suggest a new one altogether.

I'm filled with dread - here are a few snaps from half way through last years Movember... Semi-mos

So check out these mos and let me know what you think...

Magnum Mo...

Wario Mo...
Private Walker Mo...

To donate follow the link on the right hand side of my page...

When Lunt came to town...

2007-10-29T15:59:00.000+13:00

Richard Lunt arrived in town 10 days ago. He picked a pretty good weekend to turn up on with it being Rob's birthday and the Rugby World Cup final with a bank holiday to close.

While I worked midweek Lunt took off to the Waitomo Caves on a tour then to Rotorua where I met him for a Friday night on the tiles. Lots of fun. No time for a hang over as it was luging, zorbing then more booze on the Saturday.

I think we managed to fit quite a lot in and I was happy to see Lunt was in as good a form as ever.

Check his blog for some pictures and (less amusing) write up of his trip.

I took the soft option and, rather than upload a zillion pictures, have created an action-packed video for your enjoyment.

Clear your schedule - it's 10 minutes long...

Oops they did it again...

2007-10-11T17:08:00.000+13:00

Having widely slagged off northern hemisphere rugby and already picked the 4 semi finalists for the Rugby World Cup, the All Blacks follow their Tasman cousins on the plane back home.

The fall out here has been pretty spectacular. Imagine what it's like when the England football team get knocked out of an international tournament, ie every other August, and then imagine if England were overwhelming favourites for that tournament.

Everyone and everything is to blame - the ref, their rotation policy, , reconditioning, lack of decent warm up games, the rules of rugby (my personal favourite). What it boils down to though is the ABs choked (again). They had plenty of time, possession and territory to set up a simple drop goal but they didn't.

Surprise, surprise, England are in the semis. I don't think anyone saw that coming. The game against the French should be close and is well worth forsaking the Sunday lie in.

I've probably lost the non rugby fans by now (99% of my audience), but if you're still here how about a little quiz? Most New Zealand sporting teams have a nickname, based around black, silver, fern etc. Here are a few examples:

All Blacks - obvious
All Whites - men's football
Black Caps - men's cricket
Tall Blacks - men's basketball
Silver ferns - netball
Football ferns - women's football
Black sticks - both hockey teams
Black cocks - badminton (seriously)

A new one was born recently and probably the best one I've heard yet. Who can tell me what the NZ lawn bowls team is called?

Another video...

2007-09-30T16:05:00.001+13:00

Here's one I've been meaning to do for a while, a little montage of quad biking from mine and Jo's trip up north a couple of months ago...

Kara-not all that-oke

2007-09-30T15:48:00.000+13:00

An off the cuff night out had been a long time in coming. As I toiled in the gardens of West Auckland, Rob and Bonzo were busy buying some beers and 3 dead men's suits from the local charity shop.

I got home to find them in their outfits, chuckling away to Max and Paddy's. A perfect way to start a night out.

After the fridge was emptied we headed to the local for the $3 pints and karaoke.

A few songs later and we headed into town. Drunk...

For the masochistic among you, here are a selection of songs...

Shout outs

2007-09-26T19:37:00.000+12:00

First shout out goes to Tranter for getting the film quote. Congrats. I think I put that up there several months ago. Which just goes to show how little traffic comes through here these days. Damn those social networking websites. I've now put up a slightly more high brow quote.

Secondly, welcome back Swiss/Seoul/Shanghai James who has finally found a way round Communism. Now where's my link???

Third one goes to my Dad, who's regular watching of his favourite film made sure I knew the answer to a tricky question in the quiz last night.... Which Rodgers and Hammerstein musical contains this song? (there was musical accompaniment to this question, but you'll have to make do with the song lyrics... #gonna wash that man right out of my hair...#)

Sadly I wasn't paying enough attention to one of my sister's favourites as I didn't get this one...

Which of these wasn't one of the Von Trapp children in the Sound of Music? Liesl, Louisa or Max?

Gartside's homecoming countdown........... exactly 12 weeks from today........

Catch up...

2007-09-23T15:54:00.000+12:00

I have a spare moment to share what's been going on of late. And it won't take long.

There have been a couple of quizzes recently, we finished 5th in our second attempt at the one at our new local, then 3rd. My proudest quiz moments so far are getting Waiting For God from the theme tune, and knowing the Poirot novel where there are 13 killers.

Bingo has also been successful. Just when were getting a bit angry at the same 2 people winning every game going, I took out the last game for a $30 voucher. Nice.

As for sports, well, the 11-a-side season is over. We have an awards do next weekend where I'm not expecting to come away with anything. I only scored 3 goals and had a niggling heel injury for the second half of the season. Not much to shout/write about really.

I have made my long awaited return between the sticks with a few appearances for a mate's indoor 5-a-side team. Mixed results but I've been playing pretty well and enjoying the fun to be had playing in nets. One thing I haven't been enjoying so much is the penalty situation. I'm used to the the taker only being allowed a one-step run up, but not so in this format - they can take as much of a run up as they like. I've had to face 3 so far and the only joy I had was when I jumped and turned mid air, offering my substantial backside when the ball was struck. Not surprisingly I saved it, but the ball fell to the striker and the good work of my arse went to waste.

Sports viewing has been at an all time low. England couldn't seem to put in a half decent performance, let alone win, in just about any sporting code. But a win for the rugby, and Oldham getting off the bottom of the table has cheered me up momentarily.

So as you can see, not much exciting has been going on. Maybe this is the calm before the storm - Lunt's visit is only a few weeks away...

And people say moving is stressful...

2007-09-11T17:38:00.000+12:00

Not for us it wasn't. First of all, we had time on our hands and an old house that was going to be renovated. The solution - clay pigeon shooting with darts and an old smoke alarm. Lots of fun to be had. Even more than chairiot racing.

As for the new area, there's now a new local... The Thirsty Whale. Quiz nights are still on Tuesdays but you get a free plate of chips, 3 pint jugs are $12 (5 quid ish) and there are a lot less teams. Only 10 in fact last week. We flirted with the top 3 but ended up 7th. Not all bad though as this was the designated random prize place. That's a nice $20 voucher to get us started tonight.

On Wednesday's it has bingo! Yep, it's something more commonly associated with the fogies but, just like lawn bowls, we're making it cool. I was a winner too! Sadly not the Warriors play off tickets with free taxi to and from the game and an hour's free drinking beforehand... I won a meat pack, which is not to be sniffed at. Especially after it went off in the fridge after 2 days. Cheapskates.

Thursday is karaoke night. We haven't given it a go yet, maybe we'll try when Lunt is here...

And finally, the local barber may be $3 more expensive than the last local place (I'm paying $15 now... about 6 quid), but this place has swinging saloon doors to get from the waiting room to the cutting zone. Sweet.

A sad start to the weekend...

2007-09-07T23:04:00.000+12:00

Pavarotti has gone, and now the actor that played Amos in Emmerdale has kicked the bucket.

The budget was tight on that show, he and Seth had to share a beard...

Moving on up...

2007-09-03T17:28:00.000+12:00

After exactly a year in our last place we've moved. We're a little further out of town in a fancy pants fully furnished 3 level apartment. If I remember right, fully furnished is the norm in England but it's pretty rare over here. On the plus side it's got everything we need, on the down side we aren't able to give it our own unique style.

That said, this was the style at our old place so maybe that's a good thing...

This is the sort of furnishings we now have to live with...

To celebrate our new place a night out was in order. Casey Eden was back in town so myself, Rob and Casey devised a Shortland Street drinking game for the beers and tequila we had before heading out.

The night had a twist - Rob lost a sweepstake during the cricket world cup. One of his teams, Ireland, scored the lowest team total in the tournament so as part of the punishment he had to go out in the national costume of that country.

As we all know, a Leprechaun outfit is Ireland's national dress. Here is Rob and Casey in an apt cricket pose...

Please charge your glasses, I'd like to propose a post...

2007-08-24T19:07:00.000+12:00

Maybe it's turning 30 that's quelled my enthusiasm for updating this regularly, or maybe it's just that my life has settled into a routine, the novelty has worn off, or the new business has been hit by the bad weather so I have less money to do exciting things. Maybe it's all of the above.

But at over 3 weeks since my last contribution it's time for a catch up.

Lets start on the sporting front... A continuing losing streak has cost Greenhithe its status in the Premier League. Jo had a Sunday off so she came along to watch our make or break game against 2nd bottom. I scored only my second goal of the season (disappointing seeing as I was at about a goal a game last year) but alas Jo wasn't there to see it. Dave broke his foot (sorry, 4th metatarsal) whilst trying to Roy Keane someone and she had to drive him to hospital.

Big news - me and Rob are moving out. Sick of the damp, the mould and the carpet that is either a horrible design or has been vomited on repeatedly, we've been on the lookout for something new. Our luck was in and we've got a modern 3 level townhouse with double internal garage/mower storage/games room and toilet on the ground level, open plan kitchen, living room and balcony on floor 1 and bedrooms and bathroom on floor 2. It's a bit of a jump in rent but at least I won't have to go to the storage place every morning for my stuff and you won't be able to see your breath when sitting in the living room with the heater on for the last 2 hours (yep, that's what it's like right here, right now).

Last weekend I surprised Jo with a belated birthday gift. We went to feed the stingrays at Kelly Tarltons. First up we were given a tour of the backroom where a very big guy was chopping up fish heads and there was a rehabilitation tank containing a 3 legged turtle. I didn't really want to say anything but it looked extremely dead. Then we got our wet suits and proceeded to the main fish tank to jump in and feed the critters with our guide. I wanted to wear a Steve Urwin mask but she wouldn't let me.

Our guide does a sneaky wee - you'd think she'd know about the dye they put in to stop people doing that.

This one attacks side on for a nibble of Jo's bottom.

In closing, here are a couple of musical things I've learnt recently...

The new Arctic Monkey's album is exactly as long as the time it takes to get from our place to Rob's parents house.

Queen Greatest Hits volume 3 is really stretching the meaning of the word 'greatest'.

Mad dogs and Englishmen...

2007-07-31T16:56:00.000+12:00

On Saturday afternoon Jo and I headed to a pet shop in Browns Bay to meet up with people and dogs from GAP - Greyhounds As Pets. They were holding a meet a greyhound day. I've long since had a thing for greyhounds, so to speak, and jumped at the chance to go and meet some in person.

Meeting them and speaking with an owner has whetted my appetite even further and I'll almost certainly get one when I'm in a position to do so. Not making any silly bets this time though.

Beforehand, Jo wasn't a fan at all, but upon meeting the dogs she changed her tune a little bit. Especially after one called Floyd snuggled up against her. After the pet shop, the dogs and their owners gathered on the beach to stretch their legs. Jebus they can't half shift. Although one got a bit overexcited when seeing a little dog being walked and was all over it. It was only being friendly and the shrieks of the woman and daughter walking the puffed up curly "dog" were a little over the top.

After this we went to the English shop. Just 1 day short of 18 months after I moved here, this was the first time I'd been. I'm glad I waited this long and made a few impulse buys of items I hadn't even seen for so long. I never thought I'd get teary-eyed over a packet of cheesy wotsits.

Ah Dandelion & Burdock. At the first taste I was transported taken back in time about 20 years to Saturday lunches. The morning was spent scoring freely for the church football team, then back home for a feast from Franks chippy, a bottle of D&B and Saint & Greavsie for entertainment. Perfection.

Weekend of booze...

2007-07-31T16:36:00.000+12:00

For the first time in quite a while I had a boozy weekend. First up was a night out in town as Jo's sister Michelle was visiting from Sydney. It wasn't a major night but we saw a half decent covers band in the Empire Tavern, which is much more like my kind of bar than the usual ones in the viaduct.

After a short recovery period it was on to the 2nd night out - the Greenhithe FC fundraising quiz.

Prizes were bountiful (including $50 worth of Greenacres vouchers I'd managed to rustle up) and everyone was likely to walk away with a prize. Or so they said. Out of our team of 9 only one of us was a raffle prize winner - Rob's mum winning a duvet which Rob quickly bagsed.

Everyone chipped in with answers as we managed to achieve mid table mediocrity. It was a good night, and a surprisingly large number of people there, probably over 100. All of whom will have put good money in the kitty toward our end of season tour (piss up).

Most exciting part of the night for me was coming very close to winning a bottle of bourbon. The game was throwing dollar coins at said bottle with the winner being the closest one. I held the lead until right at the end when someone beat me by the Queen's nose.

A selection of pictures...

Me and Rob not doing much to dispell the ribbing we get for being gay (our team decided we were as we often arrive for the game in the same car)...

Jo steals some wigs from the neighbouring table. They work better on us...

Our team manager (having been decorated by Jo) and myself...

The team...

(L-R) Jo, her friend Gemma, Sonya, Dave, Mick, Jayne, me, Rob, Mia

Donny gets a bad press...

2007-07-26T08:28:00.000+12:00

Old news this seeing as it was filmed about 20 years ago, but I happened across an episode of Blackadder last night. The following dialogue ensued...

Baldrick: [re: Edmund's unattractive bride-to-be] Why not make her believe you prefer the company of men?
Prince Edmund: But I do, Baldrick, I do!
Baldrick: No, I mean... the intimate company of men.
Prince Edmund: You don't mean... like the Earl of Doncaster?

Shocking. I didn't know that was a gay bar.

Birthdays galore...

2007-07-21T09:15:00.000+12:00

Happy birthday to my 3 favourite ladies (not Destiny's Child)...

L'il sis Natalie turned 28 on July 4th, my mum turned 37 (plus change) on the 17th and Jo turned 23 on the 19th.

As with things like stag do's, which turned to stag weekends, to stag weeks, Jo is having plenty of birthweek celebrations.

First up was a party at her friends house. We arrived early to help set up, so instead of watching the All Blacks take on South Africa I was baking a cake with a bunch of girls, listening to Pink and slagging off ex boyfriends. It was a fun night though and I managed not to embarrass myself in front of her friends. I even nailed a few vodkas to prove my worth.

Then on Wednesday I tagged along on her family meal out at a restaurant called Art Ducko - a lovely meal, although I was a tad disappointed there was only one duck item on the menu.

This weekend saw the last All Black home match before the world cup. It was against the old foes, Australia at Eden Park - just up the street. All this would suggest that I'd get tickets in plenty of time. Alas, no. I left it too late and it sold out. So, to the auction sites. Just when I was beginning to despair at the amount of people who were 'unable to go, so I just want to get rid of my ticket.... for 6 times face value', I happened upon a genuine seller who sold his tickets for face value and Jo and I were in. Sweet.

What wasn't so sweet was the weather. We were on the terraces which, despite the name, are seated. They aren't covered though and we got soaked through despite the stylish ponchos Jo's mum provided us with...

The best atmosphere came during the haka...

To wrap up Jo's birthweek we went skiing at the local indoor venue. Jo hasn't skied since primary school but that didn't show as she took off down the slopes...

Good times.

Bledisloe Cup...

2007-07-21T09:12:00.001+12:00

All Blacks vs. the Wallabies tonight just up the road. We stupidly left it too late to get tickets and are now scrabbling around on trademe (NZ's equivalent of eBay) without much luck.

I want to see the haka live.

To tide me over, this ad made the news here the other day. I like it...

Oop north...

2007-07-02T22:09:00.000+12:00

I hadn't been much further north than Auckland since I arrived here. That is until this weekend. Jo's birthday present to me was a weekend away to Paihia in the Bay of Islands which is a few hours drive north of Auckland. Interestingly enough this is where NZ's first game of cricket was held (thank you Wikipedia).

We arrived on Saturday afternoon and after checking in to the imaginatively named Hotel Paihia we headed just up the road to Waitangi where a very important Treaty was signed in 1840. The Treaty of Waitangi is effectively the document on which modern day New Zealand was founded. The British chucked a few guns and blankets the way of the Maoris in exchange for the land. Or something dastardly like that anyway.

For the centenary celebrations a replica waka taua (war canoe) was built using traditional methods...

80 paddlers brought it to shore containing as many Maori warriors with scary war faces like this...

This is all that remains of the tree from which the canoe was fashioned...

One of the first Maori chiefs to sign the Treaty was Hone Heke. He was a bit of a monkey though and protested against the British by chopping down the flagstaff in the grounds on four occasions. The cheeky rascal. It's metal now though...

Chop that down with your little flint tomahawk.

After our cultural afternoon we went out for some food and a few drinks in town. There isn't a great deal there except a few backpackers which were too far to walk in the rain. We went to seemingly the only bar in the centre showing the All Blacks test against Australia. After a solid first half the ABs did bugger all in the second and lost to two late scores. Maybe the world cup won't be the walkover a lot of people expect.

Sunday was a day to get up early and head even further north for the surprise activity organised by Jo. We're in NZ so it had to be something adrenelin fuelled and it was...QUAD BIKING!!!

The weather was awful for the whole drive up to Ahipara which is just outside Kaitaia and the southernmost point of 90 mile beach (which is actually only 55 miles long... Global warming no doubt). But the rain stopped just as we got to the offices of Tua Tua Tours. Only Jo and I were booked on a tour so we had the guide to ourselves. We spent 2 hours hooning over flat sand beaches (reaching speeds of 75 km/hr), teetering over coastal rocks, skiding up sand dunes and sliding down the other side of them. Utterly fantastic couple of hours. I have some good video footage which I'll release soon. Here are a few pics...

Our guide Greg, followed by Jo

Taking a breather

In the background are the shacks of the many local seaweed scroungers. They extract the agar which they sell at market. They could do with buying themselves some dulux. Although seeing as they have no power or running water they probably have other things to worry about.

We make quad biking look cool

From the windy coastline to desert like conditions

This was steeper than it looks...lots of fun

Hands down the best thing I've done in New Zealand and if anyone fancies coming over here to visit we'll gladly join you on a quad bike tour.

With smiles embedded on our chops we headed back to the hotel stopping off at New Zealand's oldest building (1819 - snigger, my parents house is older than that)

And Haruru Falls...

The heavy rainful making the normally clear water a lighter shade of brown.

On Monday we caught the ferry over to Russell, the first major port of New Zealand. It's early population of ex-convicts and drunken sailors earned it the title "Hell Hole of the Pacific". Sadly Auckland took over as the main port and the country's capital and Russell became the quaint fishing village it is today...

On our way back home we stopped off at Kawakawa, a tiny little town with nothing to write home about except some unique public conveniences...

They are apparently "world famous" - here is why

Our final stop was the Kauri museum. I found this really interesting, with lots of interactive displays which kept my short attention span entertained. Here I am sat inside what looked like a portaloo, carved from a Kauri swamp log which was buried underwater for over 3000 years...

I look very pleased with myself. Although staff would probably rather I'd buried my own swamp log back in Kawakawa.

I thought I had it bad...

2007-06-28T22:48:00.003+12:00

...when I was out working in the rain the other day.

This picture (courtesy of the BBC South Yorkshire website) is at the road at the bottom of my parents drive. Fortunately they live on a small hill so the house is ok but plenty of others aren't so lucky. Such as our neighbours whose house is just out of shot to the right at ground level.

Freebies...

2007-06-18T12:56:00.000+12:00

I went to the annual Green Acres trade show and conference on Thursday. No free trip to far flung exciting destinations but there were free nibbles and lots of prize giveaways.

It was good to chat with a few people from head office and even better to win movie tickets, a mini tool, a new head for my trimmer and a big coil of trimmer line. Well over a 100 bucks worth of prizes which sound a bit boring but it's always good to be a winner...

Boring post but my people demand updates. Not that it matters, everyone is on facebook these days.

The big 3 oh...

2007-06-10T21:52:00.000+12:00

As reported on Lunt's blog (with some lovely snaps) I've turned 30. It's the first birthday I haven't really been looking forward to but it turned out to be a good one.

On my actual birthday Jo and I went out for a meal, then I was drafted in to play cricket as we were short. We lost. Disappointing.

On Friday I planned a good old fashioned English all-dayer. Myself, Rob and Dave didn't start as early as we wanted (about 4) but it was a 12 hour session so I guess that qualifies. We started in Shadows, the Auckland Uni bar, drinking rather cheap jugs of Oranjeboom and from there the memory is sketchy at best. A quality night out though.

Then on Saturday morning we dragged ourselves out of bed to go karting. Despite a few late drop outs we still had 8 of us who, to a man, ignored the no contact pleas of the safety video and smashed our way round the indoor/outdoor track for a couple of bruising races. Jiah and Rob took the victories with me coming second both times. Always the bridesmaid...

No pictures unfortunately, but there are plenty of the subsequent night out. The All Blacks' second test against France was on so we went to the Kingslander to watch the slaughter. Watching this game confirmed 2 things... 1. The French national anthem is by far the best around. 2. One of my favourite things about New Zealand is the haka.

Let the pictures tell the story...

Jo and her friends, Gemma and Harriet

Rob and Mia

Will celebrates the All Blacks win

Yes, I am dressed like a girl

Miller entertains the ladies

Birthday shooters

The group

The guy at the front having the time of his life is a total random

French Open semi finals...

2007-06-08T16:37:00.000+12:00

Lads, which one were you watching??

Or was it?...

Peace be with us...

2007-05-31T17:10:00.000+12:00

In the first Global Peace Index New Zealand ranked second. Not bad going. Helen Clark (PM and also my local MP) claims it's due to the peace keeping work that NZ is involved in around the world. I'm more inclined to think that it's because nothing much ever really happens here.

Second place though? That's not good enough. I'm off to Norway.

Goal bird...

2007-05-30T22:25:00.000+12:00

That pun only really works for those who spail jail the other way.

Startling news from Oldham today as the Latics have an agreement to sign former West Brom striker Lee Hughes if he is paroled in August.

For those who don't know his story, here is a link.

I'm a bit conflicted on this one. Speaking as a fan, it looks like a good signing. If fit he should score bags of goals at that level.

However, he's killed 2 people and paralised another. But then again, he's served his time as set out by the criminal justice system that's in place in the UK. Hmmm.

As you can see, I'm conflicted. Ultimately, I think the system is wrong - it doesn't punish people enough for that crime. But that's not Lee Hughes' fault.

He probably won't sign anyway, whoever Warnock manages next will get him. The striker hogging git.

Tickets bought and paid for...

2007-05-30T22:19:00.000+12:00

I mentioned in a previous post that our tickets back to the UK were booked. They're now paid for so there's no backing out now.

We arrive on the 19th December (after 2 nights in LA and 1 in Frankfurt) and leave on 5th January for a couple of nights in Paris, 2 in Rome, 2 in Shanghai then back to Auckland.

It's going to be a hectic few weeks as on top of the travelling I've already mentioned I'll be heading to Poland for Andy's stag do, we'll be off to Ireland for the wedding and there are so many people I want to catch up with.

Exciting times.

Sporting update...

2007-05-30T21:50:00.000+12:00

I promise if I do anything other than work or play sport I'll let you know.

Football is painful to tell you about. At least I've scored my first goal of the season - a free kick just in from the corner flag was pulled back to me and I slammed it home, Sheringham like, to put us 3-2 up away at one of the league's weaker teams. We went to 4-2 before conceding several late goals to lose 6-4. The opposition had only scored 3 goals all season.

Our next game was a cup match against the Chinese team who put 9 past us in a league game. We learnt our lesson and it was only 8 this time. 8-1 the final score, I'll claim an assist for our only goal. The referee played an interesting part - Rob was sent off for 2 bookable offences, Dave (making his debut) was booked for 2 sending off offences (1 for each foot in his horrendous tackle) and one of our defenders gave away a free kick on the edge of our box for his socks being rolled down. Interesting.

Last week's cricket game was quite exciting. It came down to the last partnership with myself and Keggie (captain marval) needing 25 runs to win the match. We were ahead with 3 balls to go and with me on strike all we needed to do was not get out. The next delivery was a quick short one that went right through me, shaving the top of my thumb. The keeper caught it but there was no appeal. Fair enough. The next ball was pretty much the same and I couldn't do much with it. Strike 2. No, I haven't just slipped in a baseball term for no reason, a dot ball in indoor cricket is considered a strike. 2 consecutive ones and you're on strike 2 - which means that you have to run on the next ball, no matter what.

So it came down to the last ball - we were 1 run ahead, I was facing and this bowler had me pegged. He took some pace off and tried a yorker, fortunately for me, which I blocked quite easily and we scampered through for the single to win the game. Get in.

Catch up...

2007-05-20T12:31:00.000+12:00

Ok, here goes. The mammoth update I promised. Blimey, it really is a long time since I put anything proper on here. I think I'll break it down into various categories, each more tedious than the last...

Sport...

Indoor cricket - well, we've certainly improved, results wise, since we dropped down to the simpletons grade. Only 1 defeat and mainly wins by big margins. We have had one close game where it came down to the last few balls with me and Will batting. We needed 5 off the last 4 overs but each time we got the scores level we'd lose a wicket. With 2 balls to go we were all square, I threw the bat at a wide one and should have been caught out. I wasn't and Will kept out the final delivery to see us home in a thriller.

Football - today is our 6th match of the season. I still haven't scored. In fact, me and Rob haven't exactly carried over the form of last season. Between us we got about half the teams goals after we joined the side, but between us we have only 1 this season - a screamer from Rob against Chinese Star Sports. Shame it was in a 9-3 home defeat. Fortunately for us, the opposition fielded an ineligable player (the keeper who is apparently now playing professionally in Hong Kong) turning the result to a 2-0 win for us. I'm sure though, without that keeper we would have won 10-9, no problem. We've had normal scores including a 1-1 draw against a very good Internationale side (not the real one), a 2-2 draw away at the tricky Celtic Supporters and a narrow 2-1 defeat away at the reigning champions Bohemians. We have a victory, at home against Pakuranga, another asian team. It was a surprising one though. We started similarly to the game against Star Sports, we were 1-0 down after 3 passes (about 8 seconds), 2-0 down after 3 minutes and 5-2 down at half time. We kept believing though and took a 7-5 lead. A late consolation meant it ended 7-6. God knows what the score would have been had I put away any of my 5 chances (KPMG all over again). Airforce away today, where me and Rob made our debuts for the team and I scored my first goal. I'll probably be on the left wing though, I was shifted there last week.

Bowling - nah, this probably comes under going out.

Going out...

I'll try and work backwards on this one. That's probably the easiest way of remembering things. Last night me and Jo went to see Mark Watson, a British comedian. We saw him on an Aussie chat show a few weeks ago so I got us some tickets. Hilarious. I've no idea if he's big at all in the UK but I recommend his show.

Friday night was a double whammy - Casey Eden is off to the States to play softball for a couple of months so he had a work leaving do. Me, Rob and Mia went along to see him off. The free food and booze was an unexpected bonus. In so far as it was totally expected. Then we hot footed (one word? hyphonated? is that how you spell hyphonated?) over to Newmarket for the 30th birthday of one of the cricket team, Hamish McKegg. I didn't have my camera so no pictures unfortunately.

Wednesday night was a bit of an off the cuff night out. Casey and Dave (Rob's brother) came over. Actually, I'm going to stop describing people in brackets. You really should know who's who by now. Anyway, the 3 of us went for a beer at the Cock & Bull followed by some bowling of the 10 pin variety. It was excitement all the way with the first game going to Dave (you know who he is) and the 2nd and 3rd going to me (me). Here's a question for you - does anyone, anywhere round the world, know of a 10 pin bowling alley that doesn't break down every other bowl? We had to use that reset button repeatedly and change lanes 3 times.

On Tuesday night myself, Jo and her sister Maree went to the Kingslander quiz for the first time in months. It has gone downhill, summed up by the question: "What is usually found in a colostomy bag?" Nice.

And that's about as far back as my memory takes me I'm afraid.

Adventures of a lawn mower man...

Nope, sorry to mislead, my job hasn't been like a bawdy 1970s British sex comedy. In fact the only 'perks' of the job I've had so far are a can of coke, an Anzac biscuit and a chocolate bar. I'd prefer cash payment really. I've completed 2 weeks training and 2 weeks out by myself. It's hard work but I'm enjoying it. With the exception of being covered in bites. I've been out and bought "tropical strength" insect repellent which, by the looks of the can, keeps away mozzies as big as your fist so hopefully that will help.

Back in the U-K-K-K...

Tickets are booked and Jo and I land in Manchester on December 19th. We leave for europe early January so keep some time free for many a reunion night out. Or night in, it might pay to stock the beer fridges, you get about 3p for a NZ$ these days.

Sundries...

There has been a new addition to our household... an N64. We resisted the temptation of the Nintendo Wii prefering actual outdoor physical activity (he says, looking down his nose) and that of the Playstation 3 (preferring the $1500 to stay in our bank accounts). We went back to the good old days. Now it's mario kart marathons and Goldeneye when I get a moment alone with the thing.

I didn't realise that it's probably around 10 years since I last had one of these. Scary.

And that's my life in dull text for the last month or so. I'll post more frequently from now on, I promise. Boz, I wouldn't want you to have to spend too much time working during the day.

Post script...

Happy birthdays to Mike and Breeny who got another year older on May 13th. Hairline receeding a bit fellas? Mine's on its way. We'll all be as bad as James before we know it.

Right, gotta go, there's a football somewhere that's not going to sky itself over the bar.

Lack of updates...

2007-05-16T17:28:00.000+12:00

Sorry for all those who've had to resort to doing work rather than read my ramblings.

This whole full time job lark has taken it out of me and I'm finding less and less time to post these days. I have set aside a fair amount of time to fire out a mammoth update very soon, so watch this space....

Mara-Messi...

2007-04-28T09:43:00.000+12:00

Great goal video - not to be confused with one of my typical strikes.

At the risk of being labelled a racist...

2007-04-23T20:35:00.000+12:00

Happy St George's Day!

Green Acres...

2007-04-23T19:44:00.001+12:00

Nope, Dave isn't writing an ecological column for Insite. For those who don't already know, I have purchased a Green Acres gardening franchise.

Here is my ute all nicely sign-written and being used like a ute should be...

Owning my own business has been my goal for quite a long time and having spent not too far off a decade in the office environment it wasn't a difficult decision to move outside to earn a living. I've been in the country for over a year now, so the timing was right.

I had my first day of training out on the lawns today and start out for real on my own on May 7th. Exciting times. Early to bed tonight - I'm knackered.

Here's my equipment (Testerossa and Victa mowers, a blower, line trimmer, weed sprayer and a variety of bits and bobs) all securely stored in my own rented unit...

I'm such a grown up.

Booze, booze, booze...

2007-04-23T19:21:00.000+12:00

Thursday would normally be a quiet one, but Casey "Ball Bags" Eden had been schmoozing customers all day for the V8 racing at Pukekohe and the company card was still shouting free beers. So he picked up Rob and me and we headed off to town to meet up with a couple of his work mates.

We toured a few bars, chasing pints all the way, then had a break at 9.30 to go and play indoor cricket. I don't really remember bowling but Rob reckons I bowled quite well. Me and Rob also put on a decent score for the first batting partnership and we sailed to another easy win (moving down a decision has proved to be a wise move).

Friday was a tough day training for my new job - I had a test on some manuals at 9.30. After that I was free to nurse my hangover.

Jo's sister, Michelle, was over from Sydney so we all went out for drinks later that evening. The camera was out and working overtime for the first time in quite a while.

Here's one where neither of us managed to pull a stupid face...

The O'Neill sisters, Maree, Jo, Michelle and Kate..

Earth, wind and hire...

2007-04-21T09:23:00.000+12:00

What's bugging kiwis this week....

1. The landslide near Wellington that occurred last August still hasn't been cleared up properly by the council. Local resident: "A backyard again, that would be really nice. I don't care what it looks like" - well that's what you've got already mate. Stop whinging.

2. The Americas Cup (yawn) has had a pretty calm start with no racing on the first 4 days due to lack of wind. I couldn't give a ship's boom personally, but it's a pretty big deal over here. Last weekend it occupied the first 8 pages of the Sunday paper's sport section. Bothered.

3. AB's chasing the pommie pound. Carl Hayman has signed for Newcastle and it looks like he won't be the only AB fleeing the nest. Going to play in a poorer standard of rugby for much more money is causing a stir over here especially as the All Blacks have a strict policy of not picking overseas players. One suggestion to keep their stars here is to offer them tax breaks. Given a lot of NZ's doctors are now working overseas due to better pay (the "brain drain") they probably want to be getting their priorities right.

And in other news, aren't cats funny?

And that's all from me. Go *&%# yourself San Diego...

Mr Hair speaks...

2007-04-21T09:19:00.000+12:00

David James has made a few suggestions regarding performance related pay for footballers.

Interesting idea, and I agree that something needs to be done. But I don't recall him saying this a few years ago when he was being paid top whack and dropping clangers left, right and centre.

Happy Birthday Heyesie...

2007-04-17T18:57:00.000+12:00

It's a day late but happy 30th birthday to my Lara's/Snakky B drinking game co-creator, Mr Peter Heyes.

No picture unfortunately as my laptop is still knacked. There are plenty of pictures on the net though of his various lookalikes which have plagued him ever since a 4 year old in McDonalds mistook him for Jimmy Nail...

Some may think he looks more like Louis Theroux...

Or Noel Gallacher....

Or Brian May (if Heyesie wore a wig)...

Or even Liza Minelli...

You decide...

The new footie season and gorilla beach volleyball...

2007-04-17T18:39:00.000+12:00

I tried to come up with a clever title for this post but decided that the truth is bizarre enough.

Let's start with the normal. The Auckland Sunday Premier League football season began this Sunday with a fixture against Internationale on the billiard table surface at our home ground - War Memorial Park. They were kitted out in the Inter strip and consisted mainly of Italians, Spaniards and South Americans. They were a good team, but somewhat like Pele before he's taken his pills - all style and class but lacked penetration.

We took the lead fairly early and held it till midway through the second half and the game ended 1-1. We were technically relegated last season but have stayed up due to more teams coming into the leagues so this was a creditable result against one of this divisions better teams.

Rob and I were a touch worse for wear after Saturday though. Mainly due to the all day drinking we got involved with.

Rob's girlfriend Mia is quite the beach volleyballist and organised a fancy dress social tournament type day at her local club. The weather just about held up and lots of fun was had by all. Especially as Sol beers were only $4 and the tequila shots were free. Those who know me well will know that I simply cannot do tequila shots so I had to resort to pouring them in my pint with a squeeze of lemon. It's a bit bent I know, but it had the desired affect.

Rob, his brother Dave and myself hired gorilla costumes and set up our area on the sidelines with a north pole theme. Guess our team name....

It was sweltering inside the costumes which we refused to take off during the games and it was pretty tough going. We did well though and won 2 of our 5 games. Not bad considering me and Dave have never played before and Rob had only tried it a couple of times. And it was boiling. And we could barely see. And we could barely run in the stupid oversized fur feet.

Not surprisingly we won best dressed and the prize of a bottle of tequila and some cocktail slush mix stuff. Good times.

It's hard to tell who's who, but Dave is in the middle doing some dancing while either me or Rob prepares to serve...

One of our many hilarious celebrations...

Take away food...

2007-04-11T08:32:00.001+12:00

When you just can't be bothered cooking and don't want the abdominal pain of a KFC, the guilt of eating a greasy burger and chips, the dysentry of a curry or the ethiopian stomach of a chinese then I have the answer. Or rather Nana's Roasts does.

For only $7.50 (about 3 quid) for a "small" meal you get meat (a choice of beef, lamb, pork or chicken), peas, potatoes, carrots, kumara (sweet potato) and pumpkin.

Personally I don't normally have the carrots, kumara or pumpkin but last night I included the pumpkin and was glad I did. Very tasty...

Happy Easter...

2007-04-11T08:04:00.000+12:00

Hope you all got lots of spiritual enlightenment or chocolate eggs, depending on your take on this holiday period.

I've had a fairly relaxing time, hanging out at Rob's parents place watching Dave win big on the nags as my each way bets almost returned what I'd staked. Then a meal with Jo and her sisters where there were more easter eggs than you could shake a bunny at.

Yesterday Jo and I took a trip over to Muriwai Beach, only a 40 minute drive from Auckland. It's home to miles of unspoilt and largely empty beaches (despite it being school holidays and gorgeous weather).

Muriwai is also home to one of New Zealand's two onshore Gannet colonies...

You bea-ute-y...

2007-04-04T11:24:00.000+12:00

I have wheels again! Check out my new ride.......

It's a Toyota Hilux, which starred in one of my favourite Top Gear features (this is a 20 min vid so have a fast computer handy). You may wonder why I've gone for a motor like this, and it's for work purposes. More on that soon...

It's a real man's vehicle which is a step up from the Hyundai Honey that's for sure. There isn't even a mirror in the passenger's sun visor.

I got a real steal through trade me (NZ's ebay) as it's in great nick, has low mileage and runs really well. I think we got to the bottom of the low price though.... This was for sale as the previous owner kicked the bucket. It doesn't stop there, he bought it from a guy...who also bit the dust. It may very well be cursed.

So, thinking caps on people, I need a name for it. Suggestions please...

Testing, testing...

2007-04-04T11:23:00.001+12:00

Yesterday I took the hardest exam since my final year tourism module at Staffs Uni. After hours of hard slog I was prepared to take my road code theory test and managed to scrape 100%. Now I am an official New Zealand drivers licence holder.

There were several questions I sweated over, here are a couple of good examples:

Which of the following sentences is TRUE?

a. Alcohol makes you a better driver
b. Alcohol has no effect on the way you drive
c. Alcohol makes you react faster when driving
d. Alcohol slows down your reactions when driving.

Or how about this one....

You may stop on a motorway only:

a. to let down or pick up passengers.
b. if there is an emergency.
c. to make a U-turn.
d. to stop and take a photo.

I was stuck on this for a while, couldn't decide between b and d. In the end I took a guess and fortunately got it right.

New layout...

2007-03-28T18:10:00.000+12:00

I've fiddled with the layout slightly to slip in an exciting guessing game for all (idea blatantly stolen from Lunt and Millhouse). On the right there will now be a film quote, updated as often as I can be bothered.

No prizes I'm afraid, but it's the taking part that counts.

Another English import...

2007-03-27T18:52:00.000+12:00

Shortland St (which I'm pretty sure was on late night tv when I was at uni) is NZ's biggest and best soap opera. And recently, it's gone off the scale.

Like established superstars before him such as Michael Barrymore and a band member of Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Adam Rickitt is now plying his trade in NZ...

This picture doesn't really do it justice, but this "former teen idol pin up" (not my words) now looks weaker than a kiwi curry.

Here's a fact you may not know... Adam Rickitt flirted with Conservative party politics. I'm not sure Cameron has quite got the Blair publicity talent. Cheesy photos with Noel Gallacher at the height of Britpop vs. a failed actor/mime artist delivering your policies.

Sporting catch up...

2007-03-27T18:28:00.000+12:00

It's been all action on the sporting front of late. First up, cricket. We lost all our grading games for the indoor cricket league but were mysteriously put in Division 1 of 2. Nice. We're still losing all our games.

Bowls has been a bit of a mixed bag. We went into the last week of the social bowls tournament with a 100% record, along with 2 other teams. We had a much bigger points difference which proved handy as it absolutely chucked it down 10 minutes before the game and we were declared winners. A nice $180 between us which isn't to be sniffed at.

The next week we had a Ryder Cup style event against the Ponsonby bowls club. As the Balmoral top team we faced off against the Ponsonby league winners and despite being 7-0 up after 3 ends managed to conjure up an 8-7 defeat. Had we cost our club the shield? As it turned out, no. Not at all. As it happened we were the only Balmoral team to lose as we won the shield 8-1.

Last Sunday was the Auckland Social Bowls championship, the champions league if you will. 16 teams consisting of the finest social bowlers in town battled it out over 4 hours of solid bowls in soaring temperatures. Unfortunately our club is one of the few that doesn't allow registered bowlers in their social competition. Most do, and we played 3 such teams in 4 of our games. Which was a shame - we lost all 4 matches.

So that's my latest news for you. In case you're wondering, I'm still out of work, but there's news to follow in the next week or so keep watching...

Superstition aint the way...

2007-03-17T13:54:00.000+13:00

I got up very early to watch England take on NZ in the cricket world cup today. I managed to make it quite a way through the England innings but gave up when we were 140-7. I went back to bed and when I got back up again we had gone on to make 209 without losing another wicket and had reduced NZ to 77-4.

I jokingly mentioned this to Creegan on text and said that the current partnership would probably go on to win the game now I'm watching. Which they did.

Also, whenever I've made the effort to stay up and listen to Oldham's game they've never won. In fact, I don't remember them even scoring a goal.

I'm not a superstitious person by nature but what the hell is that all about? Obviously my decision to tune in to a game won't affect what's happening on the other side of the world. Or will it? Am I just unfortunate? Or do I remember the bad stuff more than the good stuff? Or maybe I'm just spewing out my thoughts on this and boring you all? Who knows?

The clocks go back (or is it forward?) this weekend which coupled with the bad weather suggests that summer is coming to a close. Disappointing.

In other news I watched possibly the most girly film ever last night. I got my way watching the Simpsons and in return gave control of the remote to Jo. This was a bad move as I was stuck with having to watch The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants.

Now I have plenty of track record in whinging about having to watch girly films or romcoms then secretly enjoying them (I'm a bit of a closet Gaz Russell). But this one was too much. No bloke should have to watch this. I have been the sacrificial lamb here fellas - if a girl ever tries to get you to watch this just do like Zammo. You have been warned...

Blood, sweat and pyrotechnics...

2007-03-12T17:46:00.000+13:00

On Saturday night about half the country flocked to the Domain to see the free fireworks display by Groupe F from France. It was very impressive from what we saw, which wasn't much seeing as no matter where we stood we were behind several kids on shoulders or tall chaps with bouffs (Dunc, you people have a lot to answer for).

Click HERE for a link to some more professional pictures of the event that opened the 2007 Auckland Festival.

On Sunday me and Rob headed over the bridge for Greenhithe's 2nd pre-season friendly. It was a fairly eventful match against much fitter opposition from the Saturday leagues. We were 1-0 and playing well when Rob went up for a header. He got half ball half opponent skull and earned himself a pretty spectacular cut. Off he went, shakily, straight to hospital for stitches...

The game ended 6-1 to the mighty Greenhithe. I got a couple of goals too, so it all bodes well for the new season. To be fair, pre season was always going to go well when we crossed the bridge for the first game last Tuesday and saw the Ghanaian flag flying proudly.

2 out of 3 aint bad...

2007-03-09T12:58:00.000+13:00

This sporting week was a mixed one. Tuesday evening was the first pre-season friendly for Greenhithe, and we pitted our wits against our 'B' team, Greenhithe Liquor (sums it up really). Between us, Rob and I scored 7 of our 12ish goals (the count stopped and we didn't have proper nets) in a comfortable win.

On Wednesday night Jacks Hit notched up win number 5 to keep up the 100% record and stay clear at the top on points difference. After 3rd place in division 2 last time out, we need one more win to take the division 1 title. Exciting times.

Thursday is indoor cricket night. We've played 2 grading games so far and lost them both, last night was another grading game and we lost this one too. Me and Rob batted pretty well together, but my overs weren't too tight (I'm not a great bowler over 22 yards) and needing 45 off the last partnership we scored -8 and lost. We are going to be in a rubbish grade. Thankfully.

More pre-season 11-a-side action on Sunday when we take on Te Atatu reserves. Te Atatu play in the Saturday league which is a step up from our level so it should be a decent test.

It was a midget, a miiiiiidget...

2007-03-07T23:30:00.000+13:00

I think my long posts are scaring off potential comments. So here's a nice short one for you.

Larkins introduced me to one of the greatest (and longest) music videos of all time...

Follow THIS LINK to part 1 of R Kelly's Trapped In the Closet. I'll leave it up to you to find parts 2 to 12.

I'm pretty sure it's serious, which is a shame because it could win comedy awards galore.

When Murv came to town...

2007-03-07T16:20:00.000+13:00

Last week James "Murv" Murphy came to NZ as part of his worldwide tour. Check out his blog for more detailed description of what he's been up to.

He's been very lucky with the timing of his visit - he got dragged along to a bowls match, an indoor cricket game and an Auckland City FC game. On the plus side, he got to sample the wonderful Hell's Pizza, the delights of kiwi beer on the Lion Red Brewery tour and see live kiwi music.

Me, Jo, Rob and Murv had a couple of beers in the local after he arrived on the Sunday, generally chatting all things English which probably seemed like a foreign language to Jo, but the Kilkenny slipped down nicely and it was a good catch up session. On the Tuesday we went to Shadows, the students union bar, to watch kiwi band The Tutts, who were supported by Charlie Ash. Both were pretty good and got the thumbs up from me - a renowned music critic.

Wednesday was bowls night, and what better way to prepare than a brewery tour. The only previous one I'd been on is the Guinness one in Dublin - rubbish. This one was interesting - you got your own tour guide who knew his stuff but clearly had a life's mission to persuade all booze drinkers to abandon the poncy European green bottles in favour of the more practical brown ones. To be honest, it was falling on deaf ears. We all still go for whatever is cheapest. The brewery is also still working and there's a free bar at the end where you go crazy with the taps while you get the chance.

Here's the gang in front of a marble statue of the great Captain Cook who played an interesting part in New Zealand brewing history until I fell asleep...

So on to the bowls, we were pretty nailed really which didn't seem to do any harm - Jacks Hit kept up their 100% record and Murv and Sonia helped a short-staffed team to victory. At the final end Rob tries (and fails) to de-pants Casey...

...After bowls we had a few drinks at home. There were some brotherly manlove moments...

...then hit a few places in town, some dreadful, some good (helped by the jazz music and free drinks thanks to Casey's work card).

The next exciting thing on the agenda was indoor cricket and another pre-season grading game. We got thrashed. The opposition was brilliant. We were not. Here's me perferctly well set for a big score...

It's a shame I had neither a car or much money to show Murv a bit more of NZ but it was good to catch up and especially to sample his cooking. My first ever mac'n'cheese was delicious and the Brazilian feast he cooked on his last night was great...

...Meat, meat and more meat, with some stew (with meat in), tomatos, bread and a little bit more meat on top.

I need to go to Brazil.

Weekend

2007-02-26T17:33:00.000+13:00

Had to keep things fairly quiet seeing as I'm unemployed and low on funds. But I maybe had a few drinks on Saturday night, but did keep Sunday fairly cheap - Jo, her sister Maree and myself went to a free music festival.

Playing at Rock the Park were Eskimo Joe, Evermore (who's latest video is basically a Sally from Home & Away montage) and The Feelers. The Feelers are one of NZ's biggest bands at the moment and were probably delighted to be introduced on stage as "New Zealand's hardest working band..."

It was good to see some live music for the first time in a while. It was a scorching day and the crowds flocked in...

We took a picnic. I take eating a chocolate biscuit very seriously...

The earth moved...

2007-02-22T10:57:00.000+13:00

Quake! Auckland was hit last night by the full force of a 4.5 earthquake. It was hit by 3 in total but I only felt one of them, shaking the whole house for about half a second right in the middle of a dramatic bit on Lost. For a moment I thought it was the polar bears or the black smoke but then I came to my senses and figured out I'd just experienced my first earthquake.

I'm not counting the one that hit Stoke years ago that shook a couple of jellies and spooked a canary.

Update

2007-02-21T08:58:00.000+13:00

For those who've been missing my updates - here's about 2 weeks worth in one go. Enjoy.

What else have I been up to? Well, not content with a tour of Australia and New Zealand I needed another holiday so Jo and I headed off to the Coromandel for a few days. Very nice place, lots of lovely beaches - especially Cathedral Cove and Hot Water Beach. Appropriately named this one as at low tide you dig in the sand and hot water, and I mean really hot water, fills your hole. Exciting.

Now I'm in the process of job hunting. Even more exciting. I'm also planning the trip back to the UK next Christmas, training for the new football season starts next week and indoor cricket starts on Thursday. In addition, after 2 weeks we are top of the bowls league and looking to improve on our 3rd place last time out.

It's all go.

So long, farewell...

2007-02-21T08:49:00.000+13:00

Well, it’s been a hectic couple of weeks and my mum had a couple of days rest before heading back on that plane to the UK.

We arrived back in Auckland on the Saturday and just put our feet up for the evening. We had grander plans for the Sunday though as my mum, myself and Jo set off up north for a day nosing around a few of the northern beaches.

Several hours of driving (my driving I might add, whilst those two snoozed) and a quick tour of a few beaches later and we were back at Jo’s parents place for a BBQ. It was a fun night and everyone got on very well. Fortunately.

And so to Monday and the tearful farewell at Auckland airport. It’s been a great having my mum visit and I just want to say thanks to everyone who made her feel so welcome – the Kidds who had us over for a BBQ, the Millers who gave us a bed for the night in Wellington and the O’Neills who invited us over for the evening. Meeting my friends and their families certainly made my mum feel better about me making the move over here.

Final thanks is to my mum for making the trip over - wasn't easy to come all that way on your own but it was appreciated. I'm looking forward to next Christmas and my first trip back to the UK.

NEW ZEALAND IN 11 DAYS...

2007-02-17T13:59:00.000+13:00

DAY ONE

Take a flight from the City of Sails south to Queenstown. Ask for a seat on the right side of the plane and hope for a clear day. The views over the Southern Alps are spectacular and the descent through the hills into Queenstown Airport itself is the best I’ve experienced.

After the 15 minute journey to the town itself, take a stroll around the edge of Lake Wakatipu and refuel at one of the café/bars on the water front. I can recommend the fish and chips at 19.

DAY TWO

Walk to the top of town and the Gondola up the mountain. The views of the Lake and the Remarkables are even better from this lofty position. The interesting circle walk round the top of the mountain takes about an hour and is well worth the effort.

Queenstown from up high

On the way back to earth drop in at the Bird and Wildlife Sanctuary, it costs $30 but you get a headset which is very interesting and informative. You may even get to see the elusive Kiwi.

DAY THREE

The remote Milford Sound is a must. You can either take a coach trip which will take you there and back and include a trip on the ferry, or you can splash the boat out and take a small aircraft there and back for roughly twice the price. Faced with around 10 hours on a coach we chose the plane option and were very glad we did. The pilot doubles as a tour guide and points out the main features on the flight, of which there are many.

The ferry trip is amazing – about an hour and a half through the sound and out onto the Tasman Sea before about facing and returning to the terminal and the mercy of the sandflies.

Milford Sound

When back in Queenstown, if you still have the energy, have a walk through the Botanical Gardens.

DAY FOUR

With regret, move on from Queenstown, hiring a car to move north up toward the glaciers. It’s a 370km drive past some scenery (you’ll have run out of original superlatives by now), plenty of places to stop off for a bite to eat including Lake Hawea.

Lake Hawea

The drive takes you up through Mt Aspiring National Park then out toward the coast again at Haast. Apparently, if you have time, the fish and chips at Jackson’s Bay are worth checking out.

After several hours and seeing more roadkill and one lane bridges than you do other cars you’ll arrive in Fox Glacier.
I can highly recommend the 20km drive on the unsealed road out toward Gillespies Beach and feel like you’ve walked onto some unchartered desert island. Lake Mathieson offers good reflective views of the glacier. Although not early evening, so don’t bother at that time.

Mum keeps lookout on Gillespies Beach

DAY FIVE

Get up early and make your way the few kilometres to the base of the glacier. The walk to the face takes about an hour and is a litigious American’s delight, with perilous stepping stones and slippery rock faces and barely a warning sign in sight. Great fun and good on my Mum for making it look easy. A pretty amazing glimpse of nature when you get there too. We were about a week late though, as there had recently been a collapse at the front of the glacier sending “boulders the size of cars” off down the ice blue river.

Us in front of a collapsed ice cave

Hopefully the weather won’t take a turn for the worse for the afternoon and the trip to Franz Josef glacier like it did for us. The storm set in and although we went to the base of this glacier we couldn’t do the walk as the weather was too bad. Felt a bit sorry for the people who had hoped to do the hike on the ice.

There aren’t many places to eat in the two glacier towns but the places we found were fantastic. In Fox we went to the Plateau – where food/wine/beer was all good, and in Franz Josef we ate at the Blue Ice Café which was even nicer.

DAY SIX

Well the weather still hasn’t cleared up so scratch that early morning trip to the glacier and head off on the drive up to Greymouth. Hokitika is a nice place to stop for some morning tea and to break the drive up a little bit. Push on up to Greymouth and the starting place of your TranzAlpine journey. There are a lot of tunnels and a few viaducts (and now I know the difference between a viaduct and a bridge) and some more scenery that will take your breath away. The journey ends a few hours later in the Garden City – Christchurch.

DAY SEVEN

Exploring Christchurch. Well the best way to do this would be on foot. There are botanical gardens, the huge Hagely Park and the quaint riverside area by the Avon. See them all. Plus the gondola taking you up to views of the port of Lyttleton and Christchurch is worth doing. Unless you’ve done it before and have recently been up the gondola in Queenstown.

A mad wizard

DAY EIGHT

Early start – the TransCoastal train leaves Christchurch at 7am so it’s a bit of a hassle having to get up. But the weather on the east coast is usually really good so expect to have much better views on this rail trip. You arrive in Picton, the ferry terminal, around lunch time. So you can either hop straight on a boat, or do as we did, hire a car, and drive over to Nelson for the night. This drive was my favourite. The roads are windier and you even have to drop as low as 15km/hr to tackle some of the hairpin bends that would put Monte Carlo to shame. But they’re nicely cambered if you fancy testing out the rickety old Toyota and scaring your passenger half to death. You’ll be stopping off several times to drink in the views of the Marlborough Sounds.
Nelson is quite nice, a smallish town (actually it’s pretty big by NZ standards) with a nice waterfront and a pleasant enough town centre. We weren’t there all that long really but long enough to have my favourite meal of the whole trip... a stonegrilled mixed grill with beer battered fries in Café Affair. My mouth is watering just thinking about it.

DAY NINE

Drive back to Picton and catch the InterIslander ferry. It takes about 3 and a half hours with an interesting journey through the sounds of the South Island before heading out on to the Cook Straight and toward Wellington. We were fortunate to be heading to the capital at the same time as hundreds of rugby fans off to watch the sevens tournament.

DAY TEN

If you’re lucky enough to be in town at the same time as the sevens then enjoy the incredibly detailed and varied costumes on show as just about everyone who goes to this tournament dresses up. Back on the tourist trail, take the cable car up the hill then walk back to the city through the gardens coming out at the government buildings and the beehive.
The waterfront is very pleasant and right on it is the Te Papa museum, one of the very best I’ve been to.

DAY ELEVEN

Fly back to Auckland and think about your favourites:

To stay: The Garden Court Apartments in Queenstown – all mod cons you could wish for in a self contained unit. Close but not too close to the city and with a staff that will organise everything for your stay in the area should you need them to.
To eat: Café Affair in Nelson run close by a great place in Wellington that I can’t remember the name of – it’s on Cuba St though.
To see: Milford Sound – no amount of superlatives can really do it justice.
To go on holiday: Queenstown – winter for skiing or summer for throwing yourself off mountains/out of planes/down rivers.
To live: Wellington – I’ve had a glimpse of most of the major places in NZ and only Auckland and Wellington are big enough for me to live in. Other places are just too quiet.
Activity: The Milford Sound trip.

All 153 photos can be found HERE

Wisdom from my two favourite races...

2007-01-30T21:21:00.000+13:00

1. By Sydney Harbour, an American woman starts shouting at the table next to her, demanding a review of their gnocchi. Or as she pronounced it... GERR NAARSHEE

2. An American again, whilst walking by the banks of the river Avon in Christchurch... "Hey dear, doesn't it remind you of Venice?" Click here for a picture of the Avon, you can make your own minds up.

3. Australian love is... when an elderly woman falls flat on her face climbing stairs her husband shouts, as passers by help her out, "See I told you not to go rushing..."

Josephine does Auckland...

2007-01-30T16:59:00.000+13:00

I was back home for the first time in nearly 4 weeks and it felt good just to be in a land where they hate Australians as much as I do.

So what did we do in Auckland? Well, on the first night we went out for a meal with Jo. Fortunately everyone got on very well and it was a very pleasant evening and mum got to see Mission Bay, one of the nicer areas of Auckland.

On the Sunday we did a bit of driving about, going over to the north shore to surprise Jo at work and take a stroll on Brown's Bay beach...

We also went for a walk on the beach at Takapuna and a little trip up Mt Eden. In the evening we were invited over to the Kidds for a BBQ. Not surprisingly, the young uns left the olds to it and went off to play Fizog. An unprecented amout of feathers and Bin Ladens but I don't think there was a Fizog.

Mum, Jayne and Kate

On the Monday we went to have a look at a few more things, like where I used to live and the domain, home to Auckland Museum. Which wasn't very exciting really. In the evening Jo met us and we went for a meal at Euro, Shane's restaurant. Delicious. And we were treated to a few extras by the big man himself. Top bloke.

For more pictures follow this LINK.

And so on to the big tour of NZ...

Ma Gartside arrives in Sydney...

2007-01-30T16:21:00.000+13:00

Not far off a year after a tearful farewell in Manchester airport, I saw my Mum again (family tears, not mine obviously. I'm a bloke). She arrived looking fresh as a daisy after a gruelling trip. She obviously fared a lot better than i did.

To say she'd had such a long trip we managed to do quite a lot on the first day, and ended with a nice seafood meal on Darling Harbour.

On day 2 we did some Christmas shopping - clothes for my present. This turned out to be very successful. I ended up with 2 pairs of jeans, a shirt, 2 t-shirts and new shorts. All for next to no money at all. Get in. God bless the strength of the pound.

In the evening we did an opera-related dinner cruise round the harbour. This was great.

A 3 course meal with stunning views of all the sights accompanied by a crooner and 2 female warblers. Lots of fun. The women made their way around the blokes in the room, sitting on laps etc. They avoided me though. No change there then. Here's mum with Pavaraussie...

We did lots of walking, through the botanical gardens, round the opera house, the harbour bridge, the rocks, the city centre and had some wonderful meals. I can recommend Nick's in Darling Harbour. Great seafood, atmosphere and service.

I love Sydney, enjoyed it more than I thought I would. More pics are available on this LINK.

But it was time to head back to Auckland and to show mum my home town...

Brisbane and beyond

2007-01-30T15:11:00.000+13:00

It was good to get to Brisbane after a mammoth journey from Sydney, and waiting for me there was Rich Bibby, one of the Manchester clan now stationed on this side of the world. We had a few beers and a catch up but the main event was the next night.

After a day of having a nose round the city centre I met up with Rich for a beer or 2, then later on we hit the local areas hard, ending up in some student place rather worse for wear...

The next day was spent nursing a horrendous hang over in a very humid house. I hadn't noticed the air con machine unfortunately.

Dunc arrived on the Thursday and Milo, the house dog, took an immediate shine to him...

We had a bbq and a few beers that night although it wasn't the liveliest - me and Rich were still feeling pretty rough and Dunc had had about 4 hours sleep in the last 4 days.

The Friday night was a good one. We met up with some of Rich's work buddies and saw a few different bars. Now pay attention because I'm about to tell you the most spooky story ever...

In one of the bars the music was fairly funky and they played Get on the Good Foot by James Brown. This prompted me to tell Dunc about the tunes me and Rob have on when we're driving to footy, then ask him to guess the last one we have on. Pretty random question. His 2 guesses - The Final Countdown and Eye of the Tiger. Both wrong.

I then get a call from Rob who was out in Auckland. I'd sent him a text to tell him of the James Brown tune and he then tells me that he's been in a bar having to listen to the Final Countdown followed by Eye of the Tiger.

WEIRD.

And so to the Saturday and our little road trip to Surfers Paradise. This was great fun, although Surfers is essentially a tacky holiday resort (we stayed at The British Arms) it does have great weather and miles of sparsely populated beaches. So we had a great time larking around in the sunshine during the day time...

And then a tour of a few of the bars around town...

Brisbane was a good laugh and it was great to catch up with Rich and Dunc again. Thanks to Rich and his flatmates for letting me stay for so long and for being such good hosts. For more pictures, follow this LINK

On the Monday I headed back to Sydney and the extended hospitality of Chris and Jill. My mum was landing in Sydney on the Wednesday morning so we got chance to hang out for a bit longer. More thanks due to Chris and Jill for letting me stay and giving me a great base from which to explore Sydney.

Lack of updates...

2007-01-16T20:10:00.000+13:00

Well my laptop has died a death the likes of which hasn't been seen since the time Bernard Manning and Alf Garnett co-hosted the MOBO awards.

I'll have to send it away when I get back to New Zealand so it could be some time before I can put up the pictures from the rest of my trip.

Just to let you know what you're missing out on here is my itinerary...

Jan 8th - Byron Bay (on my own)
Jan 9th - Brisbane (to visit Rich and Dunc)
Jan 13th - Surfers Paradise (road trip with Rich and Dunc)
Jan 15th - Sydney
Jan 17th - Ma Gartside arrives
Jan 20th - Auckland
Jan 24th - Queenstown with my mum
Feb 3rd - Back in Auckland
Feb 5th - Mum departs
Feb 7th - Coromandel with Jo

I doubt I'll have my laptop back before all that so not sure when I'll be updating next.

T'ra for now...

Overnighter...

2007-01-09T10:48:00.000+13:00

I'm in Byron Bay. The weather is awful and I'm struggling to find somewhere to stay.

I set off yesterday from Sydney at 4pm and arrived via train and bus at 5.40am this morning. Lovely. I actually managed to get a bit of kip on the 12 hour train journey which is unlike me, that's despite the annoying fat kid 2 rows back who didn't stop talking and the screeching kids at the other end of the carriage.

Fair do's to the guy sat in front of me who looked at least 120 years old. He did the journey no bother. Didn't crap himself or die not even once.

Looks like I'm off to Brisbane later on today, a bit of a manc land reunion awaits...

Daddy, daddy Cook...Daddy, daddy Cook...

2007-01-07T12:53:00.000+13:00

Congratulations to Cathy and Mike...

On the arrival of their new baby boy, Daniel...

Yet another one of us who's all grown up now,

almost.

Jan 4th...

2007-01-05T15:12:00.000+13:00

We set off early in the car for the 3 and a half hour drive to the Blue Mountains, so called due to the blue haze that rises off them (evaporating Eucalyptus oil I believe). Stunning scenery and the camera was working overtime. You could probably google better pictures than I took so I won't bore you with them.

Me with the 3 sisters over my shoulder

The worlds steepest incline railway which we came down on.

It's pretty steep.

Jan 3rd...

2007-01-05T15:08:00.000+13:00

The Cessnock Hotel, and the town itself, isn't exactly blessed with class. But it was simple and did the job. For instance, my single room had 2 bunk beds in it and a window that wouldn't shut. The tap water had an 'interesting' taste to it too shall we say.

We had breakfast at a local cafe then hired our own personal taxi. Bruce (seriously) turned up and charged us a very reasonable hourly rate to take us round the vineyards. He was a very friendly chap, insisted we call him Fletch, and gave us the grand tour with all the local knowledge thrown in. He was also fairly easy on the micky taking when it came to the cricket score.

We tasted wine at several vineyards, I even bought half a dozen bottles, and ate a cheese and bread lunch at the Smelly Cheese Shop. Quality day out.

By the end we were all pretty tired and drunk but we made it out for some food in a local Irish pub before retiring to our hotel bar for a couple more beers and a game of darts. The locals were out in force and banjo music was playing in all of our heads. Early night then.

Gooseberry, Chris, Jill, Ros and Andy

Fletch lives!

Jan 2nd...

2007-01-05T15:00:00.000+13:00

Kayaking on the sea was booked in for midday. The weather didn't look great at all (again) so Chris called the company to check that all was ok. He was as good as called a poofter for doubting it. Turns out it got too windy so they stopped anyone else going out after us. Nice.

In keeping with my trip to Sydney so far I was in a single boat while the others occupied doubles (out come the violins). My boat was much faster, but I did have to do all the paddling by myself. It was pretty tiring stuff going out in the choppy waters but after about an hour we arrived at a nearby beach and docked there to eat a fish and chip lunch. Not exactly the perfect mid-exercise feed but it had to be done and after a short break we headed back.

Great fun, totally shattering and a bit of a shame I didn't have someone to share the workload. But I loved it and it was probably a good thing that no one was around to hear my language after the wake from a supercharged speedboat almost capsized me.

That evening we hopped in a hire car and drove 2 hours to Cessnock in Hunter Valley, home to some of Australia's most famous wines. We passed some kangaroos but I was driving and thought it best not to take my eyes off the road given the hairpin bends and steep ravines off one side.

New Years Day...

2007-01-05T14:59:00.000+13:00

An unusual New Years Day - on the beach.

The 5 of us got a bus over to Balmoral Bay armed with beach towels, a footie, a frisbie and terrible hangovers.

The weather wasn't great at first but we persisted, which turned out to be a great decision. The sun blazed down and we worked on our tans followed by a volleyball game of sorts in the sea (shark-net encircled bit obviously). Chris lost one game resulting in the first round that night being his, he then lost one resulting in tea making duties the next morning, Andy lost another meaning he was on toast duty and then I lost the final game between me and Chris. This resulted in him being crowned ultimate champion of the world and me walking away with nothing. Easy come, easy go.

Later on we showed off our frisbee skills. Or lack thereof. The losers in this instance was the little boy who got a face full of sand after it landed next to his head, nearly the little boy who's extravagant sandcastle development was almost levelled by a rogue throw and definitely the fat guy who got hit on not once, twice, but three occasions. He really should have moved.

Like the idiot I am I forgot my camera, so you'll have to take my word for it.

New Years Eve...

2007-01-05T14:54:00.000+13:00

New Years Eve. This was no Aqua. This was no Castlefield in the rain. This was Sydney Harbour Bridge and the firework extravaganza.

There are certain areas near the bridge which have great views of the harbour so we went there early. Andy was reserving our spot from about 11am as we got the rest of the food and drink needed. The area slowly filled until by the end we were totally hemmed in on all sides and any trip out of our zone involved stepping on many cakes, beers, feet and napping grannies. It was a fantastic experience though and I'll post video footage of the fireworks in due course.

We all had glow stick bangles. The flash makes this photo a bit redundant though...

Andy, Ros, Chris, Jill, Jess, Emma and Dan

Me and Chris looking a bit drunk with a blurry arty background

For more pictures click here

Dec 30th...

2007-01-05T14:49:00.000+13:00

I left Si at the hotel waiting for Leanne to join him for their New Year Melbourne holiday and I set off to the airport for my flight to Sydney. I was flying Virgin Blue Pacific and was slightly concerned when my flight wasn't on the board. All was well though and we set off on time. I always thought the whole fit air stewardess thing was just a myth given some of the flights I'd been on, but Virgin Blue set a new standard. (Jo, my male mates need to know this stuff. I wasn't perving honest...)

Chris 'Little Fighter' Larkin was there to meet me and we took the train back to his place via a bus trip over the Harbour Bridge. Very scenic...

I met Chris' lovely lady Jill and we had a few jars whilst waiting for their other friends, Ros and Andy to arrive.

Dec 29th...

2007-01-05T14:45:00.000+13:00

Today was day 4 of the test so it was back to the MCG. Oh, hang on a sec, no, we didn't go back to the MCG. England had lost within 3 days, the useless gits, so we had to find something else to do. And that something was a game of bowls. After using all my Kalamazoo experience to stretch out a 21-0 lead after 10 ends, Si closed the gap and after 20 ends the score was 26-17.

I count up a 4 point end for myself

Accurate bowling from Si turns the tables

Dec 28th...

2007-01-05T14:38:00.000+13:00

The first of our 2 days at the cricket. Interesting start - we had a pair of tickets for this day and two pairs for the next. Or so we thought. Turns out we had 2 pairs for today. We eventually flogged the spare pair at lunch for about a third of face value, but better than nothing.

What can I say about the cricket? Not much really. Totally embarrassing and by the end we were praying for the final wicket to fall so we wouldn't have to come back in the morning.

Saying that the seats were great. We were only 3 rows from the top of the highest stand and the distance from the pitch didn't matter too much as we'd bought some binoculars which we certainly didn't use to scan the crowd for...interesting sights. I met up with Rich too for a quick drink. The MCG is an amazing stadium. It's walkable from town, in a really nice area, wonderful views, great accoustics, great facilities and the organisation is spot on.

In the evening we went over to St Kilda again and ate a fat bastard each. It was ridiculously big and I'm pretty embarrassed I managed to finish it.

The spectacular view from our seats

Si does cheesy pose in front of the whole crowd. Not sure why he didn't get bottled.

On the 2nd day of Christmas...

2007-01-05T14:36:00.000+13:00

Today we wandered around Melbourne and St Kilda and watched the cricket in a bar. We were met by Jase, a mate of Si's, and had a few beers at his place whilst watching the cricketing shambles.

A quiet day.